A week-long Faculty Development Program (FDP) on ‘Writing Research Proposals for Extramural Grant’ was organised by the Department of Applied Sciences at Chitkara University, Himachal Pradesh.

As many as 40 faculty members of the university participated in the FDP, which commenced with an inaugural lecture session by Dr. Varinder S. Kanwar, Vice Chancellor, Chitkara Univesity, Himachal Pradesh. He discussed the various aspects of receiving a research grant from national and international funding agencies, techniques to perform good quality research, and ways to write research proposals for funding.

On the second day of the FDP, resource person Dr. Sartajvir Singh, Associate Professor, Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering, Chitkara University, Himachal Pradesh, delivered a lecture on “Literature Review: A Foundation of High-Quality Research”, discussing the importance of literature review in proposal writing with the help of a case study on Climate Action. Dr. Shivendu Prashar, Associate Professor, Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering, Chitkara University, Himachal Pradesh, was the resource person on the 3rd day who spoke on the topic “Project Methodologies and Processes”. He talked about the important components of research methodology such as technologies, interventions, organization of work elements, cost, budget, team size, flexibility, timeline, etc.

Presenting the life cycle of a research project-from ideation to completion, Dr. Arun Lal Srivastav, Assistant Professor, Department of Applied Sciences, Chitkara University, Himachal Pradesh, spoke on “Extramural Research Grant: An Overview” on the fourth day.

On the 5th day of the FDP, resource person Dr. Mukesh Prasad, Assistant Professor, Department of Applied Sciences, Chitkara University, Himachal Pradesh, talked about the various elements of a project proposal, such as the conceptualization of a research problem, title of the proposal, literature review, objectives, project execution plan, expected outcomes, etc.

The lecture session was followed by a valedictory session which was convened by Dr. Ashok Kumar, HoD, Department of Applied Sciences. He summarised the proceedings of the FDP and gave a vote of thanks to all the resource persons, participants, and members of the organising team.