Deadline: 10-Aug-2025
Applications are now open for the Vina Mazumdar Memorial Fund – Short-term Research Grants, inviting submissions for the 2025–2026 cycle.
The central theme for this round is “Reading the Changes in Rural Women’s Employment.” The grant offers up to Rs. 1 Lakh to registered doctoral students, with 30% of the grant allocated specifically for reimbursement of fieldwork-related travel and stay.
Proposals must be around 3000 words and should clearly state the research problem, objectives, methodology, and research plan. Post-doctoral students with institutional registration, who are not currently receiving any other fellowship or grant, are also eligible to apply.
The Centre for Women’s Development Studies (CWDS), with support from the VMMF, invites young scholars to explore various dimensions of women’s changing roles in rural employment. Suggested areas of inquiry include whether the rise in women’s employment in agriculture signals economic distress or structural shifts in gender roles, and the specific nature of agricultural work that women are undertaking.
Other areas include changes in household gender dynamics, women’s adaptation to changing cropping patterns and technologies, the roles of female-headed households, and the emergence of women as smallholder cultivators. Researchers are also encouraged to investigate how caste and community influence these shifts, the impact of climate change, educational attainment among young women, and access to non-farm employment.
The program welcomes a variety of research formats including micro-level studies, macro-data analysis, village studies, and oral histories. It also encourages critical evaluation of how state policies and women’s collectives are shaping these trends, and how they contribute to the broader goals of gender equality and social transformation.
For more information, visit CWDS.
