The Council of Scientific & Industrial Research (CSIR) through its Human Resource Development Group organized the "ASPIRE-SHAKTI: Celebrating Women in STEM & Initiating Project Review Sessions" event at CSIR Headquarters in New Delhi. Dr. N. Kalaiselvi, Secretary of Department of Scientific & Industrial Research and Director General of CSIR, presided over the function and released the ASPIRE-SHAKTI Compendium documenting the research accomplishments of the CSIR-ASPIRE scheme.
The CSIR-ASPIRE research scheme, exclusively for women researchers, was envisioned by Dr Jitendra Singh, Union Minister of Science & Technology, and launched on International Women's Day 2023. The scheme has achieved significant national footprint with 2,878 project proposals received from 969 institutions across almost every state. From these, 301 meritorious women researchers were competitively selected as independent Principal Investigators, representing a selection ratio of approximately 10%.
Research projects were distributed across scientific disciplines: Life Sciences (152 projects), Engineering Sciences (54 projects), Inter/Transdisciplinary Sciences (37 projects), Chemical Sciences (34 projects), and Physical Sciences (25 projects). The scheme has produced substantial research outputs including more than 253 publications in SCI-indexed journals, over 15 patent filings, and 20+ presentations at international conferences. Additionally, the program has trained over 300 research fellows comprising JRFs, SRFs, and Research Associates, building a specialized pipeline of women scholars for advanced scientific careers.
Dr. Kalaiselvi expressed concern about comparatively low participation from the North-East region and Ladakh, emphasizing the need for targeted outreach and awareness initiatives including broader participation from universities and colleges in Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities to make future calls more demographically inclusive. For the next phase, CSIR plans to identify 20-30 outstanding ASPIRE projects for support beyond research by facilitating commercialization of their innovations. CSIR will help connect promising ASPIRE researchers with relevant start-ups and innovation partners to enable translation of research outcomes into market-ready technologies.
The event also initiated Project Review Sessions where ASPIRE Subject Area Committees will assess mid-term progress of funded projects and guide their translational trajectories. The ASPIRE scheme operates under the Capacity Building and Human Resource Development (CBHRD) umbrella approved by the Cabinet chaired by the Prime Minister in September 2025.