The Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure (CDRI) is a multi-stakeholder global partnership of national governments, UN agencies and programmes, multilateral development banks and financing mechanisms, the private sector, and academic and knowledge institutions. It aims to address the challenges of building resilience into infrastructure systems and associated development. For more information, please visit cdri.world
The CDRI Fellowship Programme is an initiative by CDRI to promote research and development on the real-world problems of building resilient infrastructure. In a year, CDRI offers up to 20 Fellowships and provides a one- time grant of up to US$15,000 per Fellowship. CDRI Fellowship is open to the citizens of CDRI Member countries, without any constraints of educational qualification, affiliation, or professional experience. To apply for the Fellowship, eligible candidates should submit their research proposals through the online Fellowship application portal.
The CDRI Fellowship Programme aims to encourage research on problems faced in developing disaster resilient infrastructure. The research outcomes are expected to be practically implementable and should advance the knowledge on disaster resilient infrastructure. These solutions should focus on various aspects such as recovery and reconstruction, resilient infrastructure, life cycle of project development, policy formulation, financing of resilience in infrastructure, etc. Moreover, the CDRI Fellowship Programme is to promote mainstreaming and capacity building in disaster resilient infrastructure.
In addition to the Fellowship amount of up to US$15,000, CDRI Fellows will become part of CDRI's global network. They may be invited to present their research at the annual International Conference on Disaster Resilient Infrastructure (ICDRI) hosted by CDRI. Fellows may also be sponsored to present their research outcomes at other prestigious international conferences or seminars.
CDRI Fellowship is open to all citizens of CDRI member countries. The candidates can be students, scholars, faculty, or researchers from academic institutes; practitioners from government agencies, service agencies, non-governmental organizations, private organizations, and community workers. A candidate can be part of up to two Research Projects under the CDRI Fellowship Programme at any given time. Educational qualification or professional experience is no bar. However, after one's selection, the applicants will have to submit a 'letter of endorsement' from a recognized academic or research institute/government organization.
National governments that have endorsed the CDRI Charter are CDRI Member countries. As of June 2021, CDRI has 24 member countries. The updated list is available at https://www.cdri.world/members
Eligible candidates can apply for the CDRI Fellowship Programme irrespective of their level of education, professional background, or current occupation. However, the research topic must be relevant to disaster resilient infrastructure, and applicants have to provide a letter of endorsement from a recognized academic or research institute/ government organization. The applicants need not be related to the institute or organization which issues the letter of endorsement.
You can apply for Fellowship at the CDRI Fellowship portal (Link). For the 2022-23 application process, key dates of the CDRI Fellowship Programme are:
The CDRI Fellowship Programme does not intend to provide funding for regular Master/PhD courses. However, all eligible candidates, including Master and PhD students, can apply for the CDRI Fellowship. The Fellowship provides a one-time grant of up to US$15,000 (or equivalent) for each selected research proposal to support and encourage research on disaster resilient infrastructure.
The research areas under the CDRI Fellowship Programme cover all aspects of building resilient infrastructure, life cycle of project development in the disaster context, policy and standard formulation, financing for disasters, developing infrastructure resilience for the community, more inclusive designs, nature-based solutions, technological innovations for building back better, etc. Topics informed by future perspectives like climate change, social and ecological inclusiveness, renewable energy, etc., in the context of infrastructure are relevant. The thematic area for the year 2022-23 are:
Research topics for CDRI past Fellows can be seen here. For further information on resilient infrastructure, please visit: CDRI Blog.
For each accepted research proposal, the CDRI Fellowship provides a one-time grant of up to US$15,000 (or equivalent) in two equal installments. The first installment will be granted after the final acceptance of the Research Proposal by the International Jury. The second installment will be disbursed on the satisfactory performance in the third progress review. This amount is inclusive of all costs, overheads for the endorsing institute, taxes, duties, etc.
The institute/organization which issues the Letter of Endorsement may be paid an administrative overhead of up to 15 percent of the Fellowship grant. This is included in the Fellowship grant
CDRI will disburse the Fellowship grant to applicants in two installments through online transaction to the Institute/Organization, which issues the Letter of Endorsement for the Fellowship application.
The research projects under the CDRI Fellowship should be completed within 12 months from the disbursement of the first instalment of the Fellowship grant. Generally, no extension is permitted in the duration of the project; however, in extraordinary situations, CDRI may consider an extension of project duration for not more than six months. There shall be no increase in the Fellowship amount due to extension of the duration of the Fellowship.
The applicants are expected to appropriately acknowledge CDRI in the research publications arising out of the research conducted under the CDRI Fellowship Programme. In addition, the completion report submitted by the Fellows will be the intellectual property of CDRI.
An applicant can be part of up to two research proposals at any given time. An applicant cannot be part of third research proposal if previous two proposals are under review or under ongoing research. A research proposal will be treated as complete only if project closure report has been accepted by CDRI.
A research proposal can have up to five team members. However, the amount of Fellowship will remain fixed at up to US$15,000 for each accepted research proposal. The team members can appropriately distribute the grant among themselves. CDRI does not intervene in the ways Fellowship amount is distributed amongst team members.
The Fellowship is open to candidates from CDRI Member countries, and CDRI may collaborate with research organizations to facilitate smooth execution of the Fellowship Programme, including due diligence of applicants, transfer of grants, provision of research facilities, review of ongoing research, testing of prototypes or field testing, as required. In the long term, CDRI may also intends to collaborate with these organizations for capacity building in disaster resilient infrastructure.
Interested applicants should consider following broad aspects while approaching an institute or organization for a Letter of Endorsement.
CDRI Fellowship does not provide grants exclusively for attending conferences or travel. Applicants are encouraged to showcase the outcomes from the CDRI Fellowship at suitable platforms with due credit given to CDRI as a funding organization. However, for selected high-quality research produced under the CDRI Fellowship Programme, CDRI may, at its discretion, invite Fellows to present their research at certain platforms. CDRI may sponsor applicants for such invitations.
The CDRI Fellowship Programme encourages collaborative research and technology transfer across institutes, organizations, or countries. However, individual candidates must fulfill the eligibility criteria.