Request for Proposals: Vina Mazumdar Memorial Fund – Short-term Research Grants (India)
Section
Deadline Date
August 10, 2025
Donor Agency
Centre for Women's Development Studies
Grant Size
$1000 to $10,000
Applicants are now invited to submit applications for its Vina Mazumdar Memorial Fund - Short-term Research Grants.
Theme
- ‘Reading the Changes in Rural Women’s Employment’
Funding Information
- Proposals in approximately 3000 words stating the problem, research objectives, research plan and methodology are invited from registered doctoral students for a grant of up to Rs.1 Lakh for the year 2025-2026. 30% of the this Rs.
- One Lakh grant component will comprise reimbursement for field work related travel and stay.
Eligibility Criteria
- Post-doctoral students with institutional registration who are not recipients of any other fellowship grants are also eligible to apply.
- CWDS with the support of VMMF invites proposals from young scholars to undertake research studies that may probe the following question/s:
- Is the increased share of agriculture in women’s employment a sign of distress in rural employment or a larger change in the women’s role in agriculture?
- What are the nature of tasks in agriculture that is driving increases in women’s employment?
- With increased work in agriculture, what, if any, changes are taking place in gender relations within household work and responsibilities?
- How are women in agriculture relating to changing cropping patterns and new technologies in agriculture?
- What are the nature of engagement of female headed households in farming?
- How do they locate the recent shift in women’s roles from helpers to smallholder cultivators?
- What are the caste and community features of present day rural women’s employment, and how does caste and community background affect the changes taking place?
- How do climate change and the increased risks in agriculture explain and affect the increased presence of women?
- How and whether increased rates of enrolment of girls in school education is affecting/changing young women’s understanding of and role in agriculture and other employments, and how is generational difference influencing women’s relationship with agricultural work?
- Does access to non-farm, urban based employment leading to young women’s withdrawal from agriculture?
- How are state policies and the formation of women’s collectives promoted through various state programmes operating as factors in driving changes in women’s role in agriculture? What are the challenges of sustenance of women farmer producer’s collective?
- Given the highly gendered social relations and poor ownership of land among women how does one nuance these micro changes from the perspective of the larger goal of social and economic transformation, and gender equality?
- State or region specific micro-studies, in depth macro-data analysis, village studies, oral histories, and other modes of research are all welcome.
