Each Indian Institution will be allowed to submit at most 25 projects as the lead Institution from India and not more than 10 with any foreign country. All participating Indian Institutions will develop a mechanism to review and shortlist proposals before submission for SPARC. Each Indian-Foreign team can submit at most one proposal with the same Principal Investigator pairs.
Proposal Evaluation
A Sectional Committee (SC) with a Sectional Chair from each Thrust Area will be selected by the Apex Committee. Each Sectional Chair will get each proposal reviewed by one or two experts. Based on the reviews, the Sectional Chair will make a recommendation for shortlisting. The National Coordinating Institute and Sectional Chairs will jointly review the shortlisted projects, make a final recommendation for the consideration of the Apex Committee.
A proposal will be primarily evaluated on the following criteria:
- Quality / relevance of the area proposed.
- Potential to significantly advance knowledge and / or create impact on society.
- Joint strength of the teams.
- Proposed outcome & deliverables.
- Available and complementary experimental infrastructure in the institutions (for such kinds of projects).
- Additional financial support from other sources.
- This additional support including commitment from international partner will be an important criterion for evaluation of interest from the submitting team for ensuring success of the project.
Project Evaluation
- All projects will be monitored and reviewed once mid-way and once at the end of the project to evaluate progress and final outcome.
- Two Annual SPARC Conferences will be held, one at the end of each year to disseminate and highlight the outcomes of the SPARC Scheme. This will embed Indo-X Meetings between participating countries and Thematic Workshop presentations in each of the areas.
