Five months on, CSIR yet to keep its promise on increasing recruitment age limit
On February 3, 2025, CSIR famously tweeted: “The expert Committee constituted to review the RRs has recommended to increase the upper age limit to 35 years. The agenda has been prepared and is going to be placed before the GB CSIR for approval in the next meeting of GB, CSIR.” But till date, CSIR has done nothing to increase the age limit
One of the longstanding concerns among research scholars in India is the restrictive upper age limit set by the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR). Currently, the age cap for the Scientist C position, which is an entry level position, is capped at 32 years for candidates holding a doctoral degree (PhD). This criterion appears particularly stringent when compared to the norms followed by other scientific institutions in India, such as DRDO, which has set 35 years as age limit for a scientist position requiring only a master’s degree. A candidate following the conventional academic path (10+2+3+2) can complete a master’s degree by the age of 22 or 23 years, giving them nearly a decade of eligibility for a scientist position in DRDO. In contrast, a PhD scholar completing a five-year doctoral program (10+2+3+2+5) without any academic break is already around the age of 28 years by the time they qualify, leaving only a narrow four-year window to apply for Scientist C positions in CSIR.
While a PhD degree is the minimum qualification for an entry level scientist position, it goes without saying that completing one or two Postdocs gives an edge not only at the time of interview but also at the time of shortlisting. This is made amply clear by the conditions listed by CSIR in its advertisements: “Mere possession of the prescribed essential qualifications/experience does not entitle candidates to be called for the interview. Duly constituted Screening Committee will adopt its own criteria for short-listing the candidates for interview.” Completing a single Postdoc takes two-three years, which cuts it fine to apply for an entry level Scientist C position.
The real-world challenges such as career breaks, health issues, family responsibilities, or systemic delays in research timelines make it very challenging to complete both PhD and Postdoc within the set age limit. This is particularly true for certain fields such as ecology where seven or more years to complete a PhD is not uncommon. For women, transgenders, and scholars from disadvantaged backgrounds, the impact further intensifies. The current policy inadvertently penalises those who choose to pursue in-depth research, often at the cost of a delayed entry into the workforce. Raising the age bar, even by a few years, would not only align CSIR with global best practices but also acknowledge the realities of academic life in India. The focus should be on the quality of a candidate’s science and not the age.
Fellowships and reality
Ironically, the age limits set by fellowships for starting a PhD is in complete dissonance with the age limit set for recruitment by CSIR. The joint national eligibility test conducted by UGC and CSIR to award junior research fellowships have a maximum age limit of 30 years. The qualification certificate remains valid for two years, effectively allowing registration for a PhD up to the age of 32 years. For candidates from reserved categories, transgender persons, and women, the upper limit further extends up to 35 years, making it possible to begin a PhD at 37 years with a valid fellowship. Similarly, CSIR’s Direct Senior Research Fellowship allows entry up to the age of 32 years, with up to five years of relaxation. The tenure of SRF-DIRECT is generally for two years and can be extended by a year under in special cases. The recently announced ANRF – National Postdoctoral Fellowship (NPDF) for a two-year duration has set 35 years as the maximum age limit for applicants with a PhD degree with appropriate relaxations.
According to CSIR, the “total tenure as JRF [junior research fellowship] and SRF-DIRECT combined (from all sources) will not exceed five years”. A typical PhD program lasts five years, but this timeframe has proven insufficient due to lots of structural and situational challenges. Delays in thesis submission are common across institutions, driven by a range of factors, from inadequate laboratory infrastructure and inconclusive research results to pandemic-related disruptions and institutional bottlenecks. These delays are often compounded by gender-based, socioeconomic, and disability-related hurdles. As a result, completing a PhD takes longer than planned for most scholars. Ironically, the same system that supported their research journey now disqualifies them from applying for positions simply because they have crossed a rigid age threshold. This disconnect underscores the urgent need for a more flexible and realistic approach to age-based eligibility for scientist recruitment.
Complete discordance
In 2001, the upper age limit for entry-level scientist recruitment was fixed at 35 years, according to the CSIR Scientist Recruitment and Assessment Promotion Rules (CSRAP). But on June 1, 2011, CSIR amended the Scientists Recruitment Rules, wherein the age limit was reduced from 35 to 32 years, with the stated goal of “identifying men and women of exceptional talent” and attracting “committed younger professionals with substantially higher qualifications into its workforce.”However, in practice, this age cap excludes precisely the kind of highly qualified individuals the policy aims to attract — those who have spent years earning a PhD and gaining national or international postdoctoral experience. The disconnect between intention and outcome has gone unnoticed. There is complete discordance between the maximum age limit for availing junior research fellowship (30 years), Direct senior research fellowship (32 years), and 35 years for the ANRF – national postdoctoral fellowship and the upper age limit of 32 years set by CSIR for the entry-level position of Scientist C.
In early 2025, the All India Research Scholars Association (AIRSA) launched a renewed campaign on social media demanding an increase in the age limit. On February 3, 2025, in a letter to Dr. Jitender Singh, Union Minister of State Science & Technology and Vice President of CSIR, AIRSA requested CSIR to revise the upper age limit to 40 years for entry level scientist positions.
The same day, responding positively to the demands made by AIRSA, CSIR’s tweet on X (formerly Twitter) said: “The expert Committee constituted to review the RRs has recommended to increase the upper age limit to 35 years. The agenda has been prepared and is going to be placed before the GB CSIR for approval in the next meeting of GB, CSIR.” CSIR went further to say that increasing the age limit “will address the concerns of the research scholars as submitted in their representation and make the age criteria uniform across all scientific dept/organisations. Meanwhile, the feasibility of regularising the advertisements for recruitment accordingly is being worked out.”
Despite these assurances, the upper age limit hasn’t been increased to 35 years, and several CSIR laboratories that initiated recruitment this year following the tweet by CSIR did not revise the age criterion. As recently as July this year, CSIR-Central Scientific Instruments Organisation’s (CSIR-CSIO) call for online application starting July 11, 2025 has maintained 32 years as the upper age limit at the time of application submission. Other CSIR labs — CSIR-NEIST, CSIR-NML, CSIR-IIP, CSIR-NGRI, and CSIR-CBRI — that advertised too have 32 years as the upper age limit. All these labs had advertised after CSIR on February 3, 2025 tweeted on X assuring that the age limit will be increased to 35 years. This is especially disheartening for candidates affected by the cancellation of earlier recruitment advertisements during the pandemic.
Women disproportionately impacted
Rigid age limits in recruitment also disproportionately affect women scientists. As the 2023 Nobel Laureate in Economic Sciences, Claudia Goldin has shown, marriage and childbirth often delay women’s career progression and contribute to long-term disparities in the workforce. In Indian academia, this reality is starkly visible. Until recently, there were no comprehensive official records on the gender gap in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM). Independent research by Dr. Vaishnavi Ananthanarayanan and Shruti Muralidhar of BiasWatchIndia highlighted this gap. Their study, conducted between June 2020 to December 2021, found that just 16.6% of faculty in 100 Indian universities were women. In top-ranked institutions (as per NIRF 2022), the number drops further to just 10%. According to the UNESCO Institute for Statistics, women accounted for just 13.9% of science researchers in India in 2015, a figure that has barely improved, reaching only 16.6% by 2023.
While the government continues to encourage women to pursue careers in STEM, age-based cutoffs often act as hidden barriers. For example, though 40% of PhD students in India are women, only about 10.5% eventually make it to faculty positions in the top eight institutes. Such skewed representation not only discourages aspiring women scientists but also hampers the emergence of first-generation scholars, who often lack institutional support and mentorship. Unless age-based eligibility criteria are revised with a gender-sensitive lens, including transgender scholars, these inequities will persist.
The symbolic value of CSIR leadership sounds more relevant here. When Dr. N. Kalaiselvi became the first woman to head CSIR in 2022, her story — rising from modest beginnings, studying in government school and college, and earning a PhD from a State university — captured the imagination of aspiring scientists across the country. Her ascent was rightly celebrated as a breakthrough moment, particularly for women in STEM. But her journey also highlights how many hurdles still remain.
If we are to honour that spirit of inclusion, structural barriers such as rigid age limits must be reformed. Raising the age threshold, at least to 40, would be a meaningful step towards welcoming a wider, more diverse, and truly meritorious group of scientists into CSIR and other research institutions. More importantly, it would send a message that time invested in research is valued, not punished.
(Featured image credit: @AIRSAIndia)
