India’s laboratories are expanding, research funding is growing , start-ups are emerging, and Indian researchers are increasingly contributing to scientific knowledge . Amid this expansion, who is preparing scientists to become leaders?
A researcher may spend years mastering experimental techniques, analysing data, publishing papers, and writing research proposals. But when that researcher becomes a principal investigator, a faculty member or a laboratory head, their expertise alone will not suffice. Leading a research group requires the ability to mentor young researchers, communicate effectively, build trust, resolve conflicts, inspire teams, and create an environment where people can do good science. The four researchers, from diverse disciplines, had found that the Indian research ecosystem was preparing scientists for scientific work but less so for the institutional responsibilities they would face. BODH has multiple capacity-building modules, catering to diverse stages and dimensions of researchers’ professional needs. For example, one, called ‘PRABODH’, is designed to help PhD scholars communicate their knowledge to various audiences, develop professional networks and collaborations, and explore alternative career pathways across academia, research organisations, industry, policy, scientific publishing, and communication. The programme also addresses how scholars can navigate stress, burnout, imposter syndrome, setbacks in research, and work-life balance. Krishnan, the team does not charge for conducting BODH sessions. Instead, the host institution is expected to cover the speakers’ travel and boarding expenses. Host institutions have usually mobilised these funds through research projects, strategic partners, funding agencies, industry, and CSR initiatives. The transition from researcher to research leader is not always an easy one. A smart scientist may know how to formulate a hypothesis or design an experiment but managing a laboratory involves a different set of competencies. They need to figure out how best to mentor a doctoral scholar who is struggling, how to handle disagreements in a research group, how a principal investigator should build a collaboration, how to communicate a difficult decision without damaging morale, and so on. They are also taken through ways to tackle uncertainty, failure, rejection, and other challenges that arise in a complex research environment, to improve their and their teams’ resilience, and to better manage collaborations.
The initiative was born in September 2025 from the shared experiences of Veda Krishnan of the ICAR-Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI), New Delhi; Sriparna Chatterjee of CSIR-Institute of Minerals and Materials Technology, Bhubaneswar; Chandra Shekhar Sharma of IIT-Hyderabad; and Pooja Devi of CSIR-Central Scientific Instruments Organisation, Chandigarh, while working with the Indian National Young Academy of Sciences. Altogether, she estimated, a 30-member session usually costs around Rs 3,000-5,000 per participant.
According to Dr. The flexibility also means individual BODH programmes can be structured according to the needs at each institution and the funding norms there.
