Artikkelit

INDIA: Research and mobility - funding opportunities

04.06.2025

INDIA: Research and mobility - funding opportunities

Indian internationalization policy in higher education is supported with many different funding schemes for mobility to attract international talents, especially Indian diaspora, to cooperate with Indian institutions. On the other hand, Finland does not much provide support for academic mobility specifically targeted to India. However, European Union provides funding both for mobility and research also with India. For research funding there are more possibilities from bilateral Finland-India to EU-India joint funding as well as for example through Asian Development Bank initiatives. In 2025 opened also a new Vines joint program coordinated by US with Finland, India, Japan and Sweden being partners with significant funding. An excellent funding to start cooperation with Indian counterparts is provided by annual TFK funding. It should also be kept in mind that cooperation with industry might provide excellent possibilities for R&D funding.

Mobility funding for Finnish and Indian higher education institutions is not currently existing in bilateral funding schemes. However, an important new possibility to recruit researchers from abroad to Finnish universities is provided by The Research Council of Finland’s new funding scheme to support Finnish Universities in the recruitment of researchers from outside Finland (Competitive funding to strengthen university research profile (Profi9) . EU provides excellent opportunities for mobility through Erasmus+ (including Jean Monnet Actions) and Marie Sklodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) programme which offers fellowships to researchers of any nationality

 More potential opportunities for e.g. postdoctoral fellowships can be found through EURAXESS (india.euraxess).

However, India has several different funding mechanisms to support and attract Indian educated diaspora to come back to India for tightening research cooperation between HEIs in India and abroad – or to attract talents to come back and stay in India. The scheme is open to overseas scientists, faculty members and R&D professionals including Non-Resident Indians and Overseas Citizen of India. These type of funding mechanisms can be good possibilities also for Finnish research organizations and HEIs, which have Indian origin researchers/faculty or postdocs, to consider developing more intensive cooperation with Indian HEIs and research organization. One example of what Indian government is providing for Indians is VAJRA (Visiting Advanced Joint Research) FACULTY SCHEME, a dedicated program to bring a strong international connect to the R&D ecosystem of India. The scheme offers adjunct / visiting faculty assignments to overseas scientists, faculty members and R&D professionals including Non-resident Indians (NRI) and Overseas Citizen of India (OCI) to undertake high quality collaborative research in Public funded academic and research Institutions of India. VAJRA Faculty targets to engage in collaborative research in cutting edge areas of science and technology including interdisciplinary areas of priority such as energy, water, health, security, nutrition, materials and manufacturing, etc. with one or more Indian Collaborators. VAJRA Faculty is expected to co-guide research students and may also be involved in technology development, innovation, start ups, etc. More information can be found e.g. through Indian Government portal.

Another examples are VAIBHAV (VAIshwik BHArtiya Vaigynik) Fellowship by Department of Science and Technology (DST), Indian Government, which envisages a collaboration between scientists of Indian Diaspora with Indian Higher Education Institutions and public funded Scientific institutions and  GIAN (Global Initiative of Academic Networks) by MHRD (Ministry of Human Resource Development), it aims in tapping the talent pool of scientists internationally to encourage engagement with the institutes of Higher Education in India. It seeks participation of foreign faculty in Indian Universities as Distinguished/ Adjunct/ Visiting faculty/ professors to participate in delivering short or semester long courses . In addition, Indian higher education sector is seeking ways for internationalization according to the NEP2020 and many Indian universities have their own mobility funding providing support for international students and faculty to visit their universities, these can be asked straight from the partner universities.

In Finland The Finnish National Agency for Education in providing through TFK (Team Finland Knowledge) programme  funding for educational cooperation between higher education institutions through cooperation and mobility projects. The purpose is to create and strengthen cooperation between Finnish HEIs and countries selected to the TFK network, including India, and to design new operating models for cooperation. More information

Finland-India bilateral research funding has earlier been provided through Business Finland. Currently potential new joint funded calls are under negotiations between BF and DST in India, not finalized yet but might be opened earliest in the end of 2025, or in 2026. The call will most probably explore areas in Zero Carbon Future, Circular Transition for Zero Waste, 6 G and other future communication technologies. BF provides many different types of funding possibilities for international cooperation. Kindly follow the BF calls.

EU’s Horizon Europe provides several different calls under EU-India cooperation:

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) is a multilateral development bank, established already during the 60’. The ADB provides loans, grants and equity investments to it’s member countries. India is one of the founding members of the ADB and ADB is actively supporting Indias’s economic and social development. The ADB has announced a 5-year plan to invest up to 10 billion USD in urban infrastructure projects in India. ADB is owned by it’s 69 members of which Finland is one founding member, since 1966. Finland has contributed the funding in many ways; as capital subscription and different special funds. Finland is especially supporting high-growth companies focused on clean energy, climate resilience, and gender equality. Finland has also joined the ADB’s Future Carbon Fund. ADB project funding are used also by Finnish organizations and industry but should be utilized much more than what has happened this far. Finland has invested remarkably to ADB but has not been very active in utilizing ADB in the project fundings. Find more information about ADB projects in India here

A new 100 MEUR International program, New VINES (Verticals-enabling Intelligent Network Systems) joint research program of U.S. National Science Foundation NSF coordinates the program. The VINES program includes international partners from Finland, India, Japan and Sweden enabling bilateral research and innovation collaboration that align with the global vision for secure, open, and resilient 6G networks. The program seeks to support both fundamental research and verticals-driven technology development, demonstration, and translation activities. The call is open until 25.08.2025. In Finland the call is financed with the Research Council of Finland's budget authority for 2025 and with Business Finland. In India the partner organization is Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (Meity).
•    More information from NSF website in English
•    More information in Finnish from Research Council of Finland and Business Finland
•    More information India, contact Prakash Kumar, R&D in CC&BT, MeitY Prakash.kr@meity.gov.in or Kamlesh Kumar, R&D in electronics, MeitY kr.kamlesh@meity.gov.in


EU Cooperation:

More information on EU-India research and innovation cooperation
EU funding opportunities
The European Research Council offers grants to researchers in all research domains for frontier research. Indian researchers are welcome to apply and if selected are eligible for funding to establish a research group in Europe. Grants are available for researchers starting or consolidating their independent career and for advanced researchers. Synergy grants are also available, where an Indian researcher may collaborate with at least 2 European researchers, with all funded by the ERC.

 

Text: Liisa Toivonen
Photo: Nordic countries - India R&D cooperation in battery technology, credits Liisa Toivonen 

Takaisin