Students of Ayurveda colleges to receive research fellowships by CCRA

The Central Council for Research in Ayurvedic Sciences will offer research fellowships to young undergraduate students enrolled in Ayurveda colleges across the country. The Studentship Programme for Ayurveda Research Ken (SPARK) aims to support the research ideas of young undergraduate students.

The application process for SPARK will be completely online through the portal, www.spark.ccras.nic.in. "Interested candidates will be required to submit their research proposals through the SPARK Portal. The proposals will be evaluated by eminent experts and reviewers. The selected fellows will be offered financial support of Rs 50,000 under the fellowship. Initially, there will be a total of 100 seats per session," said Dr Adarsh Kumar, Assistant Director (Ayurveda), Central Council for Research in Ayurvedic Sciences (CCRAS).

Lauding the efforts of CCRAS, Special Secretary in the Ayush Ministry Pramod Kumar Pathak said, "CCRAS has taken many commendable initiatives in recent times, especially during the COVID-pandemic. The Council has not only developed popular formulations such as Ayush-64, it has as many as 18 formulations and technologies to its credit also." "I am confident that SPARK developed by the Council will support the innovative ideas of young students and promote the culture of evidence-based scientific research in the field of traditional medicine," he said.

CCRAS Director General Rabinarayan Acharya said the Council has developed and implemented a wide range of schemes and programmes to serve the citizens. "By developing meaningful collaborations with premier academic research institutions within and outside of the country such as IIT, ICMR, ICAR, JNU, BHU, AIIMS...the Council has accelerated quality research activity in the domains of Ayurveda and allied sciences," he said. He further said the Council is currently working on various research and development projects in collaboration with leading research institutions in Romania, Germany, Israel, the USA, Canada and the World Health Organization (WHO).