Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan inaugurated the Indian Council of Social Science Research (ICSSR) Research Internship Program in Social and Human Sciences on December 5. He also distributed appointment letters to ICSSR research interns and awarded prizes to winners of the National Argumentative Essay Writing Competition on “Together Elections in India: One Nation, One Election” to UG, PG and Doctoral students.
Dhananjay Singh, Member Secretary, ICSSR, Prof. Deepak K. Srivastava, President, ICSSR; Academicians, heads of institutes, many scholars and students were also present at the event held in Delhi, an official statement issued in this regard said.
Speaking at the event, Pradhan said that the internship aims to provide a unique opportunity to postgraduate students of social sciences and to strengthen social science research. This, he says, is linked to India’s national objective of achieving social progress, embracing technological disruptions and driving economic growth and development.
He said that the nature of employment is rapidly changing with technology like AI advancing this change and research in the field of social sciences will play a decisive role in helping social development due to technical obstacles.
Pradhan also said that the National Education Policy 2020 recognizes the need for quality social science research, which plays a decisive role in building society.
The ICSSR internship program is another step towards fostering personal growth and creating a pool of skilled researchers who can contribute in areas such as policy research, data analysis and social innovation, he said.
The internship program at ICSSR is designed with the basic objective of combining education with research skills to prepare young social scientists and humanists for the changing dynamics of employment and ensure their meaningful contribution to national development. The specialty of the internship program is the integration of modern education and skills with traditional knowledge and techniques.
This internship focuses on bridging the gap between academic knowledge and employability skills. It aims to foster research skills including ideation, data collection, experimentation, and report presentation. Interns will gain hands-on experience in research tools, methods, and real-world applications by working with experienced and successful mentors from universities, research think tanks, industry, and the community. The program is intended to be multi-disciplinary, with selected candidates representing various fields in the social and human sciences, including statistics, population studies, sociology, applied psychology, public health and policy, international relations, development studies, language studies and anthropology.
ICSSR has selected 40 candidates from different parts of the country to be appointed as interns. The internship program includes national and international workshops on skills required for research studies on the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the United Nations which are strongly reiterated and newly contextualized by Bharat in the highly successful G-20 Presidency Declaration.