Call for Applications | Writing Urban India Fellowship Round 3 (WUI 3.0)

The HUPA Chair for Urban Poor and the Law, in collaboration with Writing Urban India Collective and the Urban Studies Foundation (UK), is hosting the third iteration of Writing Urban India Fellowship at NLSIU in 2025. NLSIU invites applications for the Fellowship for a duration of 10 months.

About the Fellowship

Writing Urban India Fellowship Round 3 (WUI 3.0) is a mentoring initiative to nurture early career scholars in writing and publishing on urbanisation in India. The initiative aims to enable candidates with the skills and knowledge required to produce a structured writing output that is academic in nature – through capacity-building workshops, seminars and one-to-one mentorship. The programme will involve offline and online interactions based on feasibility. The first two iterations of Writing Urban India Fellowship were anchored by the Centre for Policy Research.

Please note it is not a research fellowship. It is a writing fellowship.

If you are a research scholar-Ph.D., PostDoc, Junior Faculty member, a practitioner, consultant, architect, lawyer who has a lot of data and field material on the urban question, this fellowship is for you!

We will be especially looking out for those of you who come from social and educational backgrounds where historically, writing (particularly scholarly writing) has not been valued highly. We are looking forward to hearing from all those who are not regular front benchers – but who are from small towns across India and from those for whom writing / speaking / writing in English is not second nature yet. Not because you are disadvantaged but because you probably have a rich story to tell in writing.

Cohort size: We are looking to build a close cohort of 20 fellows

Duration of the Fellowship Programme: 10 months

Eligibility: Who can apply?

• Urban Practitioners
• Students (in Ph.D. programmes) with a focus on urban studies
• Early career academics with a focus on urban studies

What’s in it for you?

• Mentorship from a stellar network of urban researchers
• A publishable writing output
• Improved ability to frame research questions and establish a well-structured narrative around them
• Opportunity to contextualise your research within a broader scholarly discourse
• Membership of a supportive community of scholars

Financial Support

The Fellowship will provide financial resources to enable you to interact with mentors, attend workshops and access resources, subject to administrative limitations. No lump-sum stipend will be provided.

Application Process

Please use the Google form link available here to apply. Please read through the instructions on the form carefully before applying.

Application Deadline: The last date to apply is be December 25, 2024.

For any queries, please write to

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