Prakriti Research Fellowship

Prakriti Research Fellowship is a small grants programme initiated to support nature conservation research and action with a focus to create a direct tangible long-term impact on nature conservation in India. The fellowship aims to provide seed money for strong on-ground work done by individuals, teams, and small NGOs in this field from various Industry partners. Prakriti Research Fellowship has been started by CARPE in collaboration with Grind Master Machines Pvt. Ltd. to support nature conservation research and action in India.

2022 - the 4th year of the fellowship recently concluded with excellent projects by 5 Fellows and 1 Incubator. The subjects and regions covered by the Fellowship were diverse Calcutta, Uttara Kannada, Gujarat, Meghalaya, Aurangabad and Bundelkhand. 2022 was also the first year for the PRF to extend its support in form of Incubation for one of the past fellows.

Read the 2022 PRF Summary Report

The broad themes under which the Fellowship is provided are:

Conservation of Important Habitats
Conservation of Threatened Species
Conservation of Urban ecology

PRF is steered by CARPE Team with a Committee comprising of experts Dr. Bahar Baviskar and Mrs. Prerna Agarwal alongwith other reviewers.

PRF 2023 Selection

Anirban Roy

Assessing community-led forest conservation in CFR-entitled parcels in Vidarbha Maharashtra

Devika M Anilkumar

Niche profile based ecorestoration of three threatened tree species in the low elevation habitats

Gayathri Venkatramanan

Environmental drivers & anthropogenic threats to insectivorous bats in agricultural & semi-urban landscape in southern state of Tamil Nadu

Samrat Sengupta

Assessment of the conservation status of the endemic Khasi Hills toad, Bufoides meghalayanus in Northeast India

Past Fellows

Divyajyoti Ganguly

Dr. Aabid Mir

Dr. Anukul Nath

Dr. Arshiya Bose

Dr. Bahar Baviskar

Dr. Jane Shangpliang

Dr. Pankaj Koparde

Dr. Sonika Kushwaha

Jui Pethe

Nobina Gupta

Priya Ranganathan

Purabi Deshpande

Radhika Kothari

Tushar Pawar

Partners

Canpack

Grind Master

AITG

Caring Friends

Yeshshree

Bandi Jai Ban

Kedar Shah

Manjot Kaur

Arvind Iyengar

Mayuri Kerr

PRF Committee

Sameer Kelkar

CARPE

Bahar Baviskar

WILDCER

Prerna Agarwal

Ecosphere

Gauri Mirashi

CARPE

Natasha Zarine

CARPE

Testimonials

Our World is witnessing/causing the 6th Extinction - an irreparable loss to biodiversity and ecologically diverse habitat. Research into these areas are must for directing Conservation Action. The PRF is aimed at funding individual researchers and has been successful in initiating excellent projects on diverse subjects such as Herbs, Odonates, Pangolins and also demonstrated Conservation action. We are excited with all the ON GROUND ZERO work happening with support of the PRF and Forest Department. We believe it is important to conduct a lot more research and awareness of our rich biodiversity and PRF is acting as a catalyst in attracting and retaining talented researchers in this field.

Sameer Kelkar

CEO, Grind Master Machines Pvt. Ltd.

I had never imagined that there is such an amazing world of dragonflies out there. Through this workshop, I got to learn so much about dragonflies, which I always considered as a mere insect and ignored. Here onwards, I will look around, take photos of dragonflies, and contribute my data to the Marathwada Citizen Science Project to do my bit of research and conservation.

Rushika Shirsat

BSc Zoology student, SBES Science College, Aurangabad

We cannot conserve what we are not aware of. Some of the past fellowships have researched biodiversity including pangolins, odonates and tigers in the Marathwada area. This inspired us to support further research.

Saurabh Bhogale

Director, AITG Group

As a passionate outdoor/wilderness enthusiast I am pleased to contribute in a meaningful way to research and conserve biodiversity. Young ecologists need to be encouraged and enabled to venture in this field.

Kedar Shah

California, USA

Without PRF 2022, I would never had the support I needed to carry out rigorous research in challenging conditions and create published material for outreach. The fellowship gave me the ability to travel extensively in my field, work in more sites, and engage with volunteers and interns to help make a comprehensive project.

Priya Ranganathan

PRF Fellow 2022

Forest officials, especially the patrolling staff, were trained to monitor the activity pattern of hispid hare in the grasslands of Manas. Since 80% of people are unaware of the presence and importance of the species in their forest beat, our ongoing capacity building has initiated excellent results on the field. This initiative will also help in large scale monitoring of the Hispid Hare survey, which we plan to organize this winter.

Forest Guards

Bansbari Range, Manas National Park, Barpeta Road, Assam