India Sustainable Growth Hub (ISGH): Call for proposals 2025

Please refer to our final guidelines and updated research priorities before applying below.

This call is funded through our India Sustainable Growth Hub grant from the Bezos Earth Fund.

ISGH call for proposals at a glance

Who can apply:	The Lead Principal Investigator (PI) must be a researcher based in India and affiliated with an Indian institution. Co-investigators and collaborators may be based internationally. We welcome applications from researchers affiliated with a broad range of institutions—including universities, research centres, think tanks, NGOs, and government bodies. The grant-holding institution must be a registered entity in India.
Project location:	India
Types of awards:	Full research grants (limit is GBP 40,000) and small research grants (limit is GBP 15,000). For both types, we are looking for projects that have strong policy relevance and potential for impact, coupled with robust research methods.
Essential reading:	ISGH Research Priorities; Innovation, Growth and the Environment Paper
Key dates:	Call opens: 1 June 2025 Submission deadline: 6 July 2025 (11pm IST) Project start date: 1 Sept 2025 onward View all key dates
Contact us:	For general queries, please contact [email protected].

Submit your proposal

Informational webinar

Session Recording:

What we work on

India is the focus of this call for proposals

ISGH research focuses on policies for sustainable growth and in particular on new economic thinking about how to build a prosperous low-carbon economy in India. India plays a major role in global climate efforts—it is the fourth largest contributor to global emissions, after China, the US, and the EU. 

This share is expected to grow unless India shifts to cleaner energy and greener growth. At the same time, India is highly vulnerable to climate change. Rising temperatures, shifting growing seasons, and more extreme weather during the monsoon are already affecting millions. 

Up to 310 million people living in coastal areas are at risk from rising sea levels (Neumann et al. 2015). Climate action, however, must be grounded in a strategy for economic development—creating jobs, reducing poverty, boosting competitiveness, and building resilience. 

For us, this is the essence of sustainable growth: how can India achieve its ambitious development goals while minimising environmental harm?

Our research direction is anchored in productivity and innovation, and the microeconomic transformations that drive sustainable growth. These include enhancing firm capabilities, improving state effectiveness, developing sound urbanisation strategies, and transitioning towards sustainable energy practices, all while safeguarding our natural environment. All of these, in turn, require a macroeconomic environment that is resilient to climate shocks.

Fundamental to our mission of contributing to informed policymaking is the use of data. We embrace all quantitative research methods and approaches that are grounded in data, and encourage the use of administrative data as well, which can offer important insights due to its detailed and often longitudinal nature. 

We are particularly interested in projects that address these issues through one of the following themes:

• Firms, trade, and productivity – Projects that look at investments that can raise firm productivity and lower externalities. This includes understanding the effects of various environmental policies on firms.
• State effectiveness – Because the nature of environmental externalities involves market failure, there is a key role for the state to be involved in facilitating sustainable growth.
• Cities – Making cities more productive and inclusive while addressing the downsides of density and ensuring resilience to climate change. Cities, done right, can be havens for climate resilience. Done poorly, they can amplify vulnerabilities  for those in poverty.
• Energy and environment – Improving access to reliable, cost-efficient energy, supporting the transition to clean energy, reducing global and local environmental externalities, and more effectively managing natural capital. This theme emphasises how India can source the energy to power its growth and how it can best preserve its threatened natural assets.
• Climate Change and Macroeconomics – This theme focuses on the macroeconomic risks and opportunities posed by climate change, and how India can align economic stability, growth, and its green transition.
• Data and Methods – We welcome proposals that create broadly useful, policy-relevant datasets using novel data sources or methods. Proposals that generate reusable data assets aligned with our core research areas are especially encouraged.

For more information read the ISGH Research Priorities.

ISGH staff will provide dedicated support to PIs for policy engagement, facilitating meetings with policymakers and key stakeholders, and providing feedback on project outputs.

Types of awards

We offer two types of awards: full research grants and small research grants.

Full research grants: These grants are for fully developed research projects. Not only must the research question be clear, but applicants must also demonstrate a commitment from implementing partners (if applicable), well-defined instruments, and a clear and compelling research design. Proposals can be for any type of research, and we encourage a variety of approaches, including secondary data. The expectation is that these projects will result in a paper publishable in a top economics journal and generate significant policy impact. All full research grants will be capped at GBP 40,000.

Small research grants: These grants are for pilot studies and exploratory research. We also encourage applicants who want to work purely on administrative data to apply through this window. All small grants will be capped at GBP 15,000. Researchers must conduct their research in India. Small grants are designed to enable researchers to further refine and test innovative research ideas with high potential policy impact by conducting preliminary research and engaging with partners, which will enable stronger full applications in future funding rounds. 

We encourage any local researcher to apply for these, but in particular PhD students and early-career researchers.

Evaluation of proposals

The ISGH is committed to equal opportunities for researchers. Research proposals are assessed based on their ability to show empirical rigour, relevance to inclusive growth policy, and value for money. 

The main criteria against which proposals are evaluated are as follows: 

1. Policy impact: The potential for significant and direct policy impact from the research, reflecting both the importance of the policy target and the current and future engagement with relevant policymakers. ISGH will favour projects with high policy relevance and impact. 
    
2. Alignment with research strategy: Does the research question address the ISGH research priorities identified in the Innovation, Growth and the Environment Paper and ISGH Research Priorities?
    
3. Quality of research design: This captures the academic rigour and quality of research design. Only projects that can demonstrate methods likely to produce valid and reliable results are considered.
    
4. Academic impact: The potential for research to advance scientific understanding of a particular issue, by significantly contributing to the existing literature and being published in a high-profile economic journal. 
    
5. Engagement with local institutions: ISGH prioritises proposals that involve local researchers, use researchers embedded in a ministry or government agency, and/or partner with local institutions. This includes PIs who reach out to country teams during proposal development or who have strong track records of engagement with policymakers.
    
6. Value for money: This involves scrutinising the budget and considering whether it is cost-effective. Key questions to consider: is the budget proportional to the task? Could the same results be achieved more inexpensively? Do the costs reflect local market rates?

Eligibility Criteria 

We welcome applications for either grant from individuals and teams led by a Principal Investigator (PI) who is based in India and affiliated with an Indian institution. 

Before applying, please carefully review the following:

The lead-PI must be based in India and specialising in economics or related social sciences (please note, all PIs should be pursuing or have obtained a PhD). The ISGH is committed to equal opportunities for researchers from all over India, and particularly welcomes proposals from a wide variety of institution types - this includes universities, research and policy institutes, government as well as non-government organisations. The host institute for the grant from IGC needs to be an organisation registered in India.

Please see below for some guiding principles:

1. Any researcher based in India is allowed to apply for the full research grant and the small research grant.
2. A single researcher can be included in more than one proposal during the same call for proposals with different proposals. A single institution is allowed to submit multiple proposals. If multiple proposals are submitted, the researcher and/or institutions involved should have the capacity to conduct the research according to the proposed timescales.
3. The Lead PI of a proposal must hold or be currently pursuing a PhD. The Lead-PI should also be based in India. Co-PIs generally should have the same qualifications, but candidates with a master’s degree can be considered. Co-PIs can be based anywhere in the world.
4. For full research grants, the ISGH will not fund projects over GBP 40,000, and for pilot or exploratory projects, ISGH will not fund projects over GBP 15,000.
5. The ISGH will not fund projects that are a) purely qualitative, b) not grounded in sound economic research principles, or c) not relevant to India.
6. Applications that are in line with ISGH Research Priorities, empirically rigorous, advance our knowledge about inclusive growth policy, and have strong value for money are favoured. 

Applicants should carefully review the research priorities for the call to understand the areas the ISGH focuses on, and to ensure that their proposal is eligible for funding. 

Key Dates

Call Announcement: 21 May 2025

Applications Open: 1 June 2025

Applications Deadline: 6 July 2025

Offers: September 2025