CSIR celebrates women researchers through ASPIRE-SHAKTI initiative

Key facts

• The Council of Scientific & Industrial Research (CSIR) hosted the ASPIRE-SHAKTI event at its New Delhi headquarters to commemorate women in STEM.
• CSIR Secretary and Director General Dr. N. Kalaiselvi unveiled the ASPIRE-SHAKTI Compendium documenting achievements of the ASPIRE scheme.
• The CSIR-ASPIRE Research Scheme was launched on International Women's Day 2023 as a dedicated program for women researchers.
• Since inception, CSIR received 2,878 project proposals from 969 institutions and selected 301 women researchers as Principal Investigators, a selection rate of about 10%.
• The scheme has produced over 253 publications in SCI-indexed journals, more than 15 patent filings, 20+ presentations at international conferences, and trained over 300 research fellows.
• Dr. Kalaiselvi noted a participation gap from the North-East region and Ladakh and called for targeted outreach to Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities.
• CSIR plans to identify 20–30 exceptional ASPIRE projects for commercialization by connecting researchers with startups and innovation partners.