JUNIOR RESEARCH FELLOWSHIP IN HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCESAN EXPLORATORY CONTEXT EVALUATION

Abstract

The Junior Research Fellowship scheme has been running since 1984 in the country and is providing opportunities to research scholars to pursue their career as researchers. In the present paper, the researchers aimed to understand why the scheme was implemented, what were the objectives of the scheme, how are the goals and objectives of the scheme are perceived by the stakeholders, and what are the changes in the context of the scheme which calls for amelioration of the objectives. Sequential explanatory transformative mixed method research design was employed and a survey with 240 participants and interview of 13 participants were used to identify the related themes. These themes were then interpreted using realist evaluation technique of context-mechanism-outcome configurations (CMOCs). On the basis of these CMOCs, it was found that the JRF scheme has been implemented so as to enhance the efficiency of research community and in enhancing research output. However, it was also found that the scheme is not able to impose standardization and comparability of the research output produced. Facilitation of the services for research fellows, quality assurance of research output, providing opportunity to pursue PhD, capacity building for national research strength, and providing financial freedom to research fellows are the major perceived goals and objectives of the scheme. The scheme led to higher enrolments under the research programmes. However, the retention of such fellows and the dropout rates or change in the mode of PhD from regular to part-time still remains to be the unresolved issues.