India has launched a revamped initiative aimed at bolstering opportunities for women scientists facing career interruptions, the Department of Science and Technology announced on Thursday.
The Women in Science and Engineering-KIRAN, or WISE-KIRAN, initiative restructures previous programs to provide targeted support for women at various career stages in science, technology, engineering and mathematics fields.
New Programs
The initiative, which replaces the Women Scientist Scheme, introduces four new programs: WISE Fellowship for Ph.D., WISE Post-Doctoral Fellowship, WISE-Societal Challenges with Opportunities and WISE Internship in Intellectual Property Rights.
The WISE-PhD program supports women pursuing doctoral research, while the WISE-PDF and WISE-SCOPE programs allow for laboratory-based and translational research, respectively.
Additionally, the WISE-IPR aims to equip women with skills for self-employment in the field of intellectual property.
“These initiatives reaffirm the government’s commitment to increasing women’s participation in STEM,” Dr. Jitendra Singh, Minister of State for Science and Technology, said in a written reply to the Rajya Sabha.
Support for Senior Women Scientists
The DST has also launched the WIDUSHI program, which supports senior women scientists, including retired researchers and those without regular employment, allowing them to continue contributing to scientific advancements.
The Department of Biotechnology has also continued its Biotechnology Career Advancement and Re-orientation scheme, first launched in 2011. This scheme provides research grants ranging from ₹40 lakh ($46,697) to ₹60 lakh for women scientists in life sciences and allied disciplines.
Over the past five years, the DST-WISE-KIRAN program has supported hundreds of women scientists across various Indian states, with significant participation in states like Delhi, Maharashtra, and Tamil Nadu. In the fiscal year 2024-25, the scheme allocated ₹77.59 crore, while the DBT-BioCARe scheme received ₹5 crore.
The parliamentary note emphasized that these programs aim to mitigate gender disparities in STEM by offering financial assistance and structured career pathways for women scientists re-entering the workforce.
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