Applications are submitted online (here). It is followed by a telephonic interview, which along with fee payment is the key determinant for enrolment in the program. We advise that students apply well ahead of time to ensure that a suitable mentor from their subject of choice is readily available.

The supervised research program pairs each mentee with a subject matter expert who is an early career researcher with a deep passion for teaching young minds the essence of critical thinking and independent research endeavours. The pair then works on a mutually determined research question that they answer by the end of the program. This research will produce an academic research paper.

An early career researcher from a top research institution from across the globe will supervise each research endeavour. Additionally, the students will benefit from the support of skilled professional editors and educational consultants through the program.

Each mentor-mentee pair mutually proposes a novel, timely, and pressing research question or topic. If it interests the students, they can work on a topic of their mentor’s choice as well. Students will also have the freedom to propose a set of topics they are interested in. These topics will be assessed by their mentors to determine the final topic.

Mentors can express their interest in participating in the program by filling in the application form (here). Subject to an online interview and their academic records. Mentor recruitment will be on a rolling basis.

You are eligible for enrolment once your application is submitted. The next steps involve a short telephonic interview, followed by the online fee payment. You will receive a confirmation along with a receipt of payment. This confirmation will enable you to sign in to your student dashboard.

Yes.

Yes.

The entire program will run over virtual platforms and means of communication. We pair mentors and mentees subject to their overlapping research interests and logistical convenience. This is not to say that you will be necessarily paired with someone in your time zone, but our administrative team will ensure that it will never become an issue. Fostering diversity and inclusiveness is a key aspect of the program.

It is required that all partakers (mentors and mentees) ensure that they have good quality internet, which is our one key eligibility requirement. All meetings will be conducted via zoom. It has very moderate bandwidth requirements (~3-4 Mbps, you can check this on http://www.speedtest.net). If you can stream YouTube or Netflix without buffering, your internet connection is more than enough. We will try our best to address this in special circumstances.

We intend to schedule all the online sessions during the standard working hours between 9 am – 6 pm. With a few exceptions that are mutually agreed upon with prior intimation and approval, no sessions will be organised outside this window.

Authenticity and sincerity are crucial. Plagiarism and fraudulent activities are carefully monitored through in-built checks. Engagement in such will lead to immediate termination.

We require that both mentors and mentees have access to good quality internet (~3-4 Mbps), a personal email account, and the necessary hardware (a personal computer) and software (Microsoft office and Zoom). In addition to satisfactory computer skills, we also require excellent communication skills in English (especially from our mentors).

All the information will be communicated via email or over the mentor/mentee dashboard. The dashboard will be accessible after the confirmation of subscription (or appointment for mentors) to the program.

Any emergencies can be directly communicated to the program team via email (support@ndeavours.org).

Fee payments and withdrawals are online. Withdrawals and refunds are handled on a by-case basis. Each student can swap a mentor up to two times during the first three sessions. Withdrawals or dropouts after that are subject to penalties deductible from the enrollment fee. After the fourth session, students cannot drop out. We follow a 100% commitment strategy. Nevertheless, if the mentor falls short on meeting her/his commitments to the pair, the students will receive a free program extension till the completion of the research paper.

Mentors are remunerated on an hourly basis. These hours are tracked and aggregated over a span of each research paper’s completion. All mentors will receive a contract of part-time employment with a detailed description of their role and responsibilities.

Yes. We encourage parents to partake and support their wards.

A pair can avail of a funded or self-funded extension of 4 additional sessions. The nature of this extension will depend on a carefully devised monitoring and tracking metric, available on each agent’s dashboard for transparency and accountability.

Yes and no, The program envisions that these research outputs should find a place in the broader spectrum of information dissemination. It can be through publications in peer-reviewed journals, open and e-journals, and subject-specific magazines or general newspapers. Our team at Ndeavours strongly encourages and supports knowledge exchange. We have specialist editors to assist with the academic writing of these research papers. Additionally, each student receives two academic counseling sessions for their future endeavors; may it be limited to publications or undergraduate admissions.

Everyone who reads your research paper. It can range from scholars or peers to the common public.

Yes. The number and position of authors are at the discretion of the mentor-mentee pair.

The time frame for the completion of a paper is governed by the program cycle (programs 1, 2, and 3).

Depends on the discretion of the mentor-mentee pair and the nature of the research. The program administration will try and accommodate whatever is logistically feasible, and it may cost extra over the program fees depending on the exact requirements. Please get in touch with us at support@ndeavours.org.

An academic paper can be a public good, if well researched and communicated well. There is a twofold benefit (private and public) from publishing your research. From an individual standpoint, it signals academic prowess. From a social viewpoint, a well-intended and thought-provoking research article caters to serving society by offering new information, answering unanswered questions, and/or inventing new tools for the betterment of the world. Academic publications are a means to this end.

We offer the option of writing a short paper (<2000 words) or a long research paper (<5000 words), determined by the mentor-mentee pair and their research topic. There is no distinction in the programs based on the type of paper that they produce. Furthermore, there is no ideal word count.

Based on their predilections and perceived command over the discipline, after consultation with their mentor.

Citations show originality in research by clearly stating what work is being built upon, and help avoid plagiarism. Moreover, as a researcher, when you pay respect to others’ work, you can expect to receive the same for yours.

By the process of triangulation - try to cross-validate any piece of information from orthogonal sources and if it prevails, then that information is factual and unlikely to be bogus.

There are no such lower- or upper-bounds on the number of citations. This depends on the subject and research topic. What matters is the quality and credibility of the source.

For three reasons. (i) Innovation, (ii) Reciprocity and (iii) Validity. One can perform research to add more such answers that people can be a few keyboard clicks away from, while also testing the accuracy of the already existing ones. It is because of research that these answers are readily available to us, and to some extent, the fact that answers are so readily available makes research easier. Interestingly, ‘Google’ is an outcome of many things, one of which is ‘Research’.