FMU IKS Community Project Call 2026

FMU IKS Community Project Call 2026: Overview

Fakir Mohan University (FMU), through its Indian Knowledge Systems Cell, is seeking department-led projects that connect students and teachers with communities around the university. This is a proposal opportunity rather than an individual employment vacancy: participating academic units will design field activity, involve students and work with local knowledge holders. The programme sits under the university's community-engagement SOP and has a consolidated project budget ceiling covering field travel, outreach material, student support, events, documentation and related costs.

The strongest proposals will combine experiential learning with useful community documentation. A project should not merely stage an event; it should identify a real community partner, explain what students will learn, show how local knowledge will be recorded responsibly and produce an archive, report or other defined output.

Posts and Disciplines

• Village heritage documentation: oral histories, folk stories, craft practices and traditional occupations recorded through field visits and community interviews.
• Tribal knowledge interaction: respectful exchanges with elders and traditional healers around ecological knowledge and indigenous plant use.
• Traditional arts and handicrafts: practical workshops and exhibitions involving artisans working in areas such as palm-leaf art, terracotta and bamboo craft.
• Indigenous food and nutrition: community-led demonstrations, millet awareness and documentation of regional food knowledge.
• Environmental sustainability: work on sacred groves, traditional water conservation, native species and locally rooted sustainable practices.
• Folk culture and performing arts: storytelling, music, dance, open-air performance and street-play activities that support living traditions.
• IKS awareness and education: orientations, heritage walks, workshops, student presentations and community exhibitions.

Service Conditions and Caveats

• Institutional eligibility: proposals come from FMU postgraduate departments, research centres, NSS units or designated outreach units, not from individuals applying for a personal grant.
• Interdisciplinary committee: the executing group must include representation from Anthropology, Education, History, Journalism and Mass Media, and Social Work.
• Community boundary: field activity must focus on rural, tribal, coastal or semi-urban communities connected with the university's outreach footprint.
• Budget discipline: every cost should map to the approved SOP heads. The allocation is a project budget and must not be presented as salary for a participant.
• Prior consent: written or recorded consent is needed before filming, recording or documenting elders, artisans or traditional healers.
• Community rights: collected indigenous knowledge must not be used for immediate personal or commercial gain, and local cultural restrictions must be respected throughout the field work.
• Documentation duty: selected teams must preserve attendance, field diaries, photographs, video, reports, feedback and expenditure records for review and archiving.

Application Submission Notes

Prepare one department-endorsed proposal with the activity title, target community, objectives, operational calendar, student-involvement plan, expected documentation output and itemised budget. Send the digital proposal to iksfmu@gmail.com through the institutional process and deliver a signed physical duplicate to the IKS Cell coordinator's office at the university.

Your cover and subject line should identify the department and proposed IKS activity clearly. Keep the digital and signed copies consistent, because the screening stage assesses the same plan that the department will be expected to implement if selected.

• Design a community field project aligned with the university IKS SOP
• Identify suitable villages, community experts, artisans, or traditional practitioners
• Build an activity calendar, student plan, and itemised budget for the proposal
• Secure informed consent before recording or documenting community knowledge
• Coordinate faculty mentors, students, outreach units, and community partners
• Document activities through field notes, photographs, video, reports, and feedback
• Submit the final archive and expenditure records within the approved timeline