Centre for Development Practice and Research, Patna

Mentoring Young Researchers Programme for 2018-19 (Modified) by TISS Patna Centre

Archived

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Venue: Centre for Development Practice and Research, Takshila Campus, TISS, Patna

Announcement of Mentoring Young Researchers Programme for 2018-19 (Modified)

Call for Applications

 

Theme: Culture and Migration

Applications are invited under Mentoring Young Researchers Programme for the year 2018-19. The theme for the year is Culture and Migration. Those who are eligible and interested in enrolling in the mentorship programme may send their application form by e-mail to patnacentre@tiss.edu. For the application form, click here.

Eligibility and Selection Process

Following a call for applications, a group of fifteen (15) young research scholars will be selected from among the applicants. This programme is meant for students belonging to the Scheduled Castes (SCs) and Scheduled Tribes (STs) only. The applicants may be regular students enrolled in Masters, MPhil or PhD programmes in a university from across the state of Bihar. The selection committee will comprise of faculty members from the TISS Patna Centre and CSEI.

IMPORTANT DATES

Deadline for application submission: 30th April 2018

Announcement of selection: 10th May 2018

Registration: 11th May to 20th May 2018

Masterclass: 1st to 4th June 2018 (to be held at TISS Patna Centre)

First Workshop: 31st August to 2nd September 2018

Second Workshop: 30th November to 2nd December 2018

Symposium: 26th and 27th April 2019.

Closing Ceremony: 27th April 2019.

 

Mentoring Young Researchers Programme (modified)

Concept Note

Introduction

Located in Bihar, the Patna Centre of the Tata Institute of Social Sciences is primarily focused on carrying research on migration. Towards this end, the TISS Patna Centre is committed to promoting critical research in the field, deploying varied theoretical perspectives and addressing multiple issues. As a facilitator of critical research on migration, the TISS Patna Centre has also been making strategic yet regular interventions in academia by organising lectures, conferences, publications and training young researchers in academic writing and research methodology. To further deepen its pedagogical intervention, the TISS Patna Centre, in collaboration with the Centre for Social Equity and Inclusion (CSEI) proposes to start a programme of Mentoring Young Researchers. Such mentorship is crucial for the health of social science research as space for dialogue and sharing within university system is rapidly shrinking. In this manner, we hope to both supplement the resources provided by the traditional university system and also transcend them in terms of addressing emerging issues and experimenting with form.

Objectives

• To promote critical social science research on migration among young researchers;
• To provide a platform for sustained mentorship of young researchers over a long period;
• To bring together young researchers and the professional scholars working on common areas and with common concerns;
• To build a network of young researchers with a focus on different dimensions of migration;
• Provide an environment for experimentation with form of research, inculcate a spirit of empirically rigorous and theoretically sound social science research on migration;
• Provide academic support in the form of readings and lectures;
• Encourage public rendition of work through email based discussion forum and through the use of new media technologies;
• Encourage a culture of peer review among young researchers by inviting researchers to comment on postings and drafts of fellow researchers; and
• Generate a corpus of research works on migration.

 To achieve these objectives

• A group of young researchers will be selected consisting of both university students as well as early career professionals.
• They will work on their proposed topic for the entire period of one year of the programme.
• Researchers will be provided academic resources to carry out research, present their work and interact with the wider academic community.
• Apart from organizing workshops, the TISS Patna Centre will also be coordinating with the group throughout the period and will facilitate public rendering of their research in print form.

Role of the Centre for Social Equity and Inclusion

The TISS Patna Centre will conduct the young researcher mentorship programme in partnership with the Centre for Social Equity and Inclusion (CSEI).  CSEI is engaged in deepening democracy and development in our body politic by enhancing the stake hold of socially excluded and marginalized communities in social, economic and cultural rights within the wider ambit of human rights. The CSEI Bihar office will contribute in mobilising the participants and in follow up of the mentorship programme.  Since the CSEI has been involved with promoting higher education among the students belonging to the SCs and STs, the collaboration would ensure that the information about the programme reaches the students otherwise less equipped or have less access to digital sources of information.  Their presence in the workshop as social animator would enhance the confidence and morale of the participants. They will also add up support mechanisms for the students of this programme.

Fellowship

The selected candidates will be provided one time fellowship of Rs. 10,000/- (ten thousand) upon successful completion of the mentorship programme. The fellowship will be called TISS-CSEI Fellowship. The fellowship will be provided by the CSEI.

Masterclass, Workshops and Symposium

It is proposed that TISS Patna Centre will conduct a four-day masterclass, two workshops each of three days, and a symposium. The faculty of the workshops will involve in-house and external resource persons who will be scholars of repute in field of migration.

Masterclass

In the very beginning of the programme, a masterclass, will be organized to with the following objectives:

• To discuss the overall architecture of the research mentorship programme;
• To hold preliminary discussion on the research interests of the participants.
• To give orientation on the theory and research questions on the theme of the mentoring programme for the year;

First Workshop

The first workshop will be conducted within two months of the masterclass. The activities will include:

• Group discussions in which researchers will be divided into small groups. Each group will be assigned a resource person who would be expert on their specific research topics. Researchers will discuss their proposals with the expert and will receive detail comments specific to individual proposals. This close dialogue may continue for the entire period of the programme. 
• Lectures on areas of common learning such as research methodology, field work and literature review.
• An email based discussion forum will be created and researchers will be encouraged to share their research experiences with the fellow researchers on this forum. The group will be moderated by the coordinator of the programme.
• A lecture on new media tools for doing research in contemporary times and also on how to use web based forums, i.e. blogs and email discussion forums to disseminate research and network with global community of researchers.

Second Workshop

This will be a review exercise of the work in progress and will be conducted in the sixth or seventh month of the programme.  The activities will include:

• A thorough discussion of the work in progress
• Presentation of at least one book review by each researcher on a book of significant merit in his/her area of research.
• Submission of work in progress report
• Lecture on how to format references and write a research paper

Symposium

At the culmination of year-long programme, researchers will make public presentation of their works to an audience consisting of academicians, researchers and members of civil society. A publication plan will be drawn during the symposium.

In order to keep the dialogue between researchers and resource persons a continuous exercise, the structure of the programme will be kept flexible having provisions for facilitating the publication of research articles in vernacular and English journals.