GUIDELINES & FORMAT FOR PREPARATION OF FULL RESEARCH PROPOSAL

Important Note: The Consortium Principal Investigator should ensure that all the suggestions made at the time of approval of the CN have been incorporated in the Full Proposal. A brief compliance note will be preferred.

Introduction (Limit to 3-4 pages covering the following points)

• Background information on need to undertake proposed research after identifying the gaps,
• State clearly the hypothesis or definition of the problem for which research has been designed,
• Give orientation to the research being reported by brief references to previous concepts/ literature and explain how the proposed research builds on earlier work in the country/ region.
• Provide sufficient background information for the readers to understand and evaluate the proposal and likely outputs/ outcome.

Rationale: (Limit to 2-3 pages covering the following points)

• State the scope and nature of the problem that you wish to research,
• Delineate the importance of the problem, in the context of national/address regional priorities and how it solves the constraints.
• What social, economic, environmental or participatory studies/ exercises underpin the assertion that the problem is important?
• Relate how the proposed research relates to NAIP objectives and criteria,
• What underlying causality do you except during implementation as precaution for PIU
• Indicate if the Programme is specific to different sites, if not then role of cooperating centers for validation purpose may be restricted.

Objectives: (Concise List of key objectives to be achieved)

• Intermediate research findings,
• New methodologies/ procedures, and
• Final outcome and likely impact.

List what would the research seek to achieve in terms of institutional objectives of NAIP, e.g. in terms of developing synergies through collaboration, links with advanced centers of learning/ education, greater participation of private sector, NGOs or farmers etc. Give hypothesis for each of the objectives.

 Review of Literature

The review should refer to pertinent work done at the Center/ India/ abroad.

 Methodologies:- Methodologies may be cited by reference.

• Use only the names if widely known methodologies techniques are used.
• Give an outline if the methods are to be modified.
• Give details of experimental designs/ statistical methods.

• Provide detailed work plan for each objective
• Provide an activity chart for each block of six months and fix milestones for each consortium
• partner/ center/ site.
• Describe follow-up work or research to be done after the proposed work is completed with likely funding needs and sources etc.
• Training needs assessment
• Benchmark Status
• Social & Environmental safeguard & mitigation strategies

Knowledge Management Indicators:- Each center has to provide a list of process and impact indicators.

• Process indicators will indicate as to how the activity milestones will be achieved and the

steps involved. Impact indicators will assess and evaluate the research findings on the socio-economic conditions of farmers, production/ productivity, cost of production including effect on environmental.

• The indicators provided by the researchers in the proposal, and those recommended by the reviewers/ TAG and approved by RPC will be used to evaluate the project outputs including its quality.

Expected Outcome/ Impact/ Deliverable s

This is very important part of a research project. At the same time it should indicate impact in relation to advances made in science, developing a new technology/ product, economic gain to the farming community, skill/ knowledge empowerment etc. impact with respect to efficiency may also be included.

• Technology dissemination of expected outcome should be quantified as far as possible.
• Impact on science, commerce, society, environment, HRD etc

• Adequate justification should be provided for each training or consultancy.
• Details of each training/ consultancy should include: area of specialization, laboratories in/ from which the training/ consultancy is to be obtained and duration/ time schedule.
• Preference should be given for the training and consultancy available within the country. As far as possible there should be harmony in the institutions where the training is imparted and the consultancy is obtained.
• The duration and schedule of foreign consultants should be planned in such a manner that many Indian researchers may be trained.
• As far as possible, only one or two labs should be chosen so that professors abroad continue to have interest in the Programme and may keep things ready before receiving the trainees.

• The budget should indicate year-wise and head-wise institutional allocations.
• The list of equipment should comprise of their make/specifications, costs and procurement plan.
• Justifications for equipment costing more than Rs. 50000/- should be given. It should be

mentioned whether the equipment is to be imported or is available in the country.

• Budget statement should clearly indicate the following:
  • Costs to be met with NAIP funds;
  • Other costs, indicating sources of funding; if any

How was the project developed?

PIs should certify that he/ she had in-depth consultation with the listed partners and the proposal

had been developed with full involvement of the Cooperating Centers/ consortia partners.