The Anusandhan National Research Foundation (ANRF) is India’s apex statutory body for funding and directing scientific research, innovation, and entrepreneurship across disciplines. ANRF did not launch alongside the older Science and Engineering Research Board (SERB) — it absorbed SERB, which had operated since 2008.
It was established by the Anusandhan National Research Foundation Act, 2023 (assented to on 15 August 2023, commenced 1 December 2023) and operates under the administrative umbrella of the Department of Science and Technology (DST). This guide explains ANRF’s governance, mandate, and funding model, and how it relates to the SERB-branded programs that many researchers still search for by name.
What ANRF is and why it was created
ANRF traces back to a proposal in India’s National Education Policy 2020 for a National Research Foundation to seed, grow, and promote research across Indian universities, colleges, and research institutions, with a particular aim of funding institutions and researchers that had historically received less support than the country’s elite science agencies. That proposal was enacted as the ANRF Act, 2023, which Parliament passed and which came into force on 1 December 2023. ANRF’s statutory mandate is to provide high-level strategic direction for research, innovation, and entrepreneurship across the natural sciences (including mathematical sciences), engineering and technology, environmental and earth sciences, health, agriculture, and the scientific and technological interfaces of the humanities and social sciences — a considerably broader remit than SERB’s, which was concentrated mainly in science and engineering.
ANRF’s first Governing Board meeting was held on 10 September 2024, chaired by the Prime Minister, formally putting the new structure into operation.
ANRF’s relationship to SERB: absorbed, not parallel
This is the point most likely to cause confusion for anyone who has previously worked with SERB’s individual-investigator and international-collaboration programs, such as the Core Research Grant, VAJRA, or the Overseas Visiting Doctoral Fellowship (OVDF). SERB was a statutory body of DST established under the Science and Engineering Research Board Act, 2008. Under the ANRF Act, 2023, SERB was formally dissolved and its functions, assets, and programs were subsumed into ANRF. In practice this means:
- SERB no longer exists as an independent statutory body. Any reference to “SERB” as an active, separate organization post-dissolution is describing a legacy name, not a current legal entity.
- SERB’s individual grant schemes did not simply disappear. Program names and application processes that researchers built around — VAJRA, OVDF, Core Research Grant, and similar schemes — have continued to operate, now administered under ANRF rather than SERB. Researchers and administrators should expect the ANRF name (and anrfonline.in as the operational portal) to appear on current calls, forms, and correspondence even where a scheme retains its familiar SERB-era name.
- ANRF’s scope is broader than SERB’s ever was. Where SERB funded largely within science and engineering, ANRF’s statutory mandate explicitly extends into health, agriculture, environmental and earth sciences, and the S&T interfaces of humanities and social sciences — disciplines SERB did not fund directly.
For a research office tracking correspondence, budget lines, or MOUs that predate December 2023, the practical action is to update the counterparty name to ANRF and confirm whether a previously SERB-administered program has migrated, been renamed, or been folded into a broader ANRF funding line, rather than assuming continuity under the old name.
Governance structure
ANRF’s governance is layered, reflecting its status as a whole-of-government coordinating body rather than a single-ministry agency:
- Governing Board — the apex body. The Prime Minister of India serves as ex-officio President; the Union Minister of Science & Technology and the Union Minister of Education serve as ex-officio Vice-Presidents. The Board includes eminent researchers and professionals drawn across disciplines.
- Executive Council — responsible for the foundation’s day-to-day governance and functioning, chaired by the Principal Scientific Adviser to the Government of India. Its members include the secretaries of the departments most relevant to ANRF’s cross-disciplinary mandate: Science and Technology, Higher Education, Health Research, Agricultural Research and Education, and Defence Research and Development, alongside ANRF’s Chief Executive Officer.
- Chief Executive Officer — runs ANRF’s operations under the Executive Council. Leadership of this role has transitioned since ANRF’s establishment; research offices should confirm the current CEO and administrative contacts directly via anrfonline.in rather than relying on a name that may be out of date by the time this page is read.
Administratively, ANRF sits under DST, which remains India’s nodal ministry-level department for science and technology policy, but ANRF itself is a distinct statutory body with its own governing structure, not simply a DST program.
Funding model and scale
ANRF is built around a five-year (2023–2028) funding corpus with a stated target of ₹50,000 crore (roughly USD 6 billion at typical 2023-era exchange rates). Two structural features of this figure matter for anyone assessing ANRF’s near-term capacity:
- A budgetary provision of ₹14,000 crore is earmarked directly from the Central Government over the five-year period.
- The remaining roughly 72% of the ₹50,000 crore target — on the order of ₹36,000 crore — is intended to come from non-government sources: industry, public sector enterprises, philanthropic organizations, foundations, and international bodies.
This public-private blend is a deliberate design choice distinguishing ANRF from a conventional government funding council: its long-run capacity depends materially on donor and industry participation actually materializing at the targeted scale, not solely on annual government budget allocations. Research offices assessing ANRF as a funding partner should treat the government-funded portion as the more predictable near-term baseline and the philanthropic/industry portion as directional rather than guaranteed.
What this means for research administrators and international collaborators
- Update institutional records. MOUs, sponsor databases, and CRIS/RIMS funder registries that still list SERB as a live sponsor should be updated to reflect ANRF as the current legal entity, while retaining SERB as a historical/legacy name for continuity of prior awards.
- Program continuity, not program identity, is what to verify. Before assuming a familiar SERB-era scheme still runs exactly as before, check current guidelines on ANRF’s own channels — eligibility, deadlines, and portal mechanics can change even where the program name is retained.
- Broader disciplinary scope creates new relevance. Institutions in health, agriculture, or interdisciplinary humanities-and-technology research that had no natural SERB counterpart may now have a route into ANRF funding that did not previously exist under SERB’s narrower science-and-engineering mandate.
- DST remains the ministry-level point of reference for broader Indian science policy questions, while ANRF is the operational funding body for grants themselves — the two are related but distinct, and correspondence should be addressed to the correct one.
Frequently asked questions
What does ANRF stand for?
ANRF stands for Anusandhan National Research Foundation — “anusandhan” is a Hindi/Sanskrit-derived word meaning “research” or “investigation.” It is sometimes referred to informally as India’s National Research Foundation (NRF), the term used in the originating National Education Policy 2020 proposal, though ANRF is the body’s official, legally established name under the 2023 Act.
Is SERB still active, or has it been replaced?
SERB has been formally dissolved as an independent statutory body; its functions and programs were subsumed into ANRF under the ANRF Act, 2023. SERB-branded program names such as VAJRA and the Overseas Visiting Doctoral Fellowship have continued to operate, but administratively they now run under ANRF, not a separate SERB entity.
Who leads ANRF?
The Prime Minister of India is ANRF’s ex-officio President, with the Union Ministers of Science & Technology and Education as ex-officio Vice-Presidents at Governing Board level. Day-to-day operations are directed by an Executive Council (chaired by the Principal Scientific Adviser to the Government of India) and a Chief Executive Officer; the CEO role has changed hands since ANRF’s founding, so confirm the current officeholder via anrfonline.in.
How is ANRF different from DST?
DST (Department of Science and Technology) is a ministry-level government department responsible for national science and technology policy; ANRF is a distinct statutory funding body that operates under DST’s administrative umbrella but has its own governing structure, board, and funding corpus. DST is the policy department; ANRF is the funding body.
What disciplines does ANRF fund?
ANRF’s statutory mandate spans natural sciences (including mathematical sciences), engineering and technology, environmental and earth sciences, health, agriculture, and the scientific and technological interfaces of the humanities and social sciences — broader than SERB’s prior science-and-engineering-centered scope.
Related CASRAI resources
- SERB (India): VAJRA and OVDF Programs for International Researchers — detail on the individual-investigator schemes now administered under ANRF.
- DST (India): Department of Science and Technology — Role, Structure & Schemes — the ministry-level department ANRF sits under.
- NSFC (China) Funding Overview, NRF Korea Funding Overview, CNPq (Brazil) Funding Overview — comparable national apex research-funding bodies elsewhere in Asia and Latin America.
- Grants Management pillar — the full CASRAI grants-lifecycle and international-funding-bodies resource hub.
Sources: Anusandhan National Research Foundation Act, 2023 (assented 15 August 2023); Department of Science and Technology, Government of India (dst.gov.in) press releases on passage of the ANRF Bill; Press Information Bureau, Government of India; ANRF’s operational portal, anrfonline.in.
