The application process is two-staged. In the first stage, prospective center leaders are invited to submit letters of interest with short outline proposals in application form along with the Refundable Application Fees. These proposals are processed by the board alone. In the second stage, applicants submit full applications that are thoroughly scrutinized by a set of international experts in the field. Prior to the final selection, the board meets with each applicant.

Applicants may contact the secretariat if they have questions about the application process. Questions can be directed to: Rajkumar Sugumaran [rajkumar(dot)sugumaran(at)asdf(dot)res(dot)in] or Arulmurugan Vadivelu [arulmurugan(dot)vadivelu(at)de(dot)technoforum(dot)co]

Fierce Competition

Applicants’ overall success rate from submitting an outline proposal to obtaining a center grant is only 6 percent. About 13-20 percent of the outline proposals move on to the full application phase, and only 30-40 percent of those applications result in new Centers of Excellence. Find more information about the various steps in the assessment and selection process in the menu on the left.