Impart × Nalli Fellowships 2027: Two INR 5.5 Lakh Grants for a Year of Independent Research into South Asia's Textile Histories and Practices

Impart × Nalli Fellowships 2027: Two INR 5.5 Lakh Grants for a Year of Independent Research into South Asia’s Textile Histories and Practices

Textile is one of South Asia’s oldest and most widely practised art forms, but much of its history sits outside the archive. Techniques pass from hand to hand rather than into print. Communities of weavers, dyers, printers, and embroiderers hold knowledge that has rarely been documented on its own terms. The Impart × Nalli Fellowships exist to fund the people who want to do that documenting — to spend a year researching a specific, under-told textile story and turning it into something the public can read, watch, or visit.

Run by Impart, an online platform for South Asian art history resources, in partnership with Nalli Silks, a heritage textile brand established in 1928, the program awards two research fellowships each year. Each comes with a grant of INR 5.5 lakh for one year of independent research and project development. Applications for the 2027 cycle opened on July 3, 2026, and the deadline is August 31, 2026, with awardees notified in December 2026 and the fellowship running from January to December 2027. This guide explains what the fellowship funds, who fits, how the application works, and how to build a proposal that stands up to review.

Key Details at a Glance

Figures and dates above are drawn from the official Impart fellowship page. Details can change between cycles, so confirm everything on the official site before you rely on it.

What the Fellowship Offers

At its core, the fellowship is a grant of INR 5.5 lakh that buys you time. It funds one year of independent research and project development, which for many applicants is the difference between an idea they never get to and a project they actually complete. The money can support the unglamorous but essential costs of real research — travel to a weaving cluster, time spent with practitioners, transcription and translation, photography, materials, and the labour of writing or making the final output.

The fellowship is structured around producing something public, not just a private study. Fellows are expected to deliver comprehensive project reports, a research dossier co-developed with Impart for public hosting, and a final project output. That output can take several forms — a film, an essay or body of writing, an exhibition, or curatorial work — depending on what the project calls for. In practice this means the fellowship is as much about publishing and sharing as it is about researching. What you learn is meant to enter the public record through Impart’s platform, extending the reach of your work well beyond the fellowship year.

Two things make this program distinctive. First, it is explicitly open to applicants anywhere in the world, so long as the project engages South Asian textile practice. Second, it welcomes a broad range of makers and thinkers — not only academics — which means the “research” it funds can be practice-based, journalistic, archival, or curatorial rather than strictly scholarly.

Who Should Apply

The fellowship is built for people with a genuine, specific question about South Asian textiles and a credible plan to answer it over a year. It names an unusually wide pool of eligible applicants: early- and mid-career researchers, designers, archivists, journalists, writers, educators, practitioners, collectives, and small organisations. If you sit in any of those categories and have a textile subject you have been wanting to pursue seriously, you are in scope.

Because the eligible group is so broad, the deciding factor is not your job title but the strength and clarity of your project. A journalist proposing a rigorous investigative story about labour in a textile supply chain, a designer documenting an endangered technique before its last practitioners retire, an archivist proposing to activate a neglected textile collection, and an independent scholar tracing a dyeing tradition across borders are all plausible fits. What they share is a defined subject, a method, and a realistic output.

This is also a good fit if you work outside a university and lack access to institutional research funding. The fellowship’s openness to practitioners, collectives, and small organisations signals that Impart is looking for compelling projects wherever they come from, not credentials for their own sake. If you have deep knowledge of a community or craft but no formal research grant behind you, this is a program designed with you in mind.

Eligibility Requirements

According to the official page, applicants must meet the following:

• Age: You must be 18 years or older.
• Residency: You may reside anywhere in the world. There is no requirement to live in South Asia.
• Project focus: Your project must engage with textile practices across the wider South Asia region. Impart defines this region broadly, including Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, the Maldives, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Tibet.
• Applicant type: Individuals across many roles are eligible — researchers, designers, archivists, journalists, writers, educators, and practitioners — as are collectives and small organisations.

The key filter is the subject, not the applicant. The fellowship is about South Asian textiles, so a project that only touches textiles incidentally, or that centres a different region, will not qualify no matter how strong it is. If you are unsure whether your subject sits inside the region or the theme, check the official page’s framing or contact Impart before you invest heavily in the proposal.

Research Themes and What Impart Is Looking For

The fellowship supports research into underexplored textile-related histories, practices, and traditions. The official page points to priority topics that give a clear sense of the program’s interests: labour practices, endangered traditions, environmental impact, textile revivalism, techniques, global design contexts, and intellectual property rights.

Read those themes as an invitation to go beyond the decorative. The program is interested in textiles as living systems — who makes them, under what conditions, with what ecological cost, and how that knowledge survives or disappears. A proposal about the economics and rights of a craft community, the environmental footprint of a dyeing process, or the near-loss of a specialised technique speaks directly to what Impart says it wants to fund. The word “underexplored” is doing real work here: the strongest applications tend to open a door onto something that has not already been thoroughly covered.

Because outputs can be journalistic, documentary, archival, curatorial, or practice-based, you have latitude in how you frame the work. Match the output to the subject. An endangered technique may call for documentary film and a technical dossier; a labour or rights story may call for investigative writing; a neglected collection may call for archive activation and an exhibition. Reviewers will be looking for a coherent line from the question you are asking to the method you will use to the thing you will produce.

The Application Process

Applications are submitted online through a Google Form. The core materials, based on the official page, are:

• A project budget document setting out how you will use the INR 5.5 lakh.
• A project timeline covering the January–December 2027 fellowship year.
• A combined PDF containing your CV, work samples, and up to two letters of support.

Treat each of these as a chance to demonstrate feasibility. The budget should be specific and honest — reviewers can tell the difference between a considered plan and a round number. Break out travel, fieldwork, documentation, translation, materials, and production costs, and make sure the total maps to a year of genuine work. The timeline should show that you have thought about sequencing: when you will do fieldwork, when you will write or make, and when the final output and dossier come together. Your work samples should show that you can actually deliver in the form you are proposing — if you say you will make a film, show that you can; if you will write, show your writing.

Letters of support, capped at two, are best used to vouch for your access and credibility. A letter from a craft community, an institution, or a collaborator that confirms you can reach the people, places, or collections at the heart of your project is more persuasive than a generic reference.

Timeline and Key Dates

The 2027 cycle follows a clear calendar. Applications opened on July 3, 2026, and close on August 31, 2026. Awardees are notified in December 2026, and the fellowship runs across the calendar year January–December 2027. That structure means the entire application window is a matter of weeks over the summer of 2026, so do not treat the August 31 deadline as distant.

The gap between notification in December 2026 and the fellowship start in January 2027 is short, which is a signal to arrive with a project you are ready to begin. The stronger your timeline and the clearer your first steps, the faster you can turn the grant into fieldwork once the year opens. Confirm all dates on the official page, since deadlines and cycle timing can shift.

Preparation Strategy

Start by narrowing your subject until it is genuinely specific. “South Asian textiles” is a field, not a project; “the survival of a particular resist-dyeing technique in one region and the practitioners who still use it” is a project. The more precise your question, the easier every other part of the application becomes.

Next, ground the project in access. Because so much textile knowledge lives with practitioners and communities rather than in archives, reviewers will want confidence that you can actually reach your sources. Line up your contacts, and let one of your two support letters confirm that access. Then design your output around the material you can realistically gather in a year, and build a budget and timeline that make that output achievable rather than aspirational.

Finally, remember that the fellowship is public-facing. Impart co-develops a research dossier from your work for public hosting, so think from the outset about how your findings will be organised, documented, and shared. A project conceived as a contribution to the public record — rather than a private study — is closer to what this program is set up to fund.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

• Too broad a subject. Sweeping surveys read as unfundable in a single year. Pick one focused story and go deep.
• A decorative framing. The program’s themes centre labour, environment, endangerment, rights, and technique. A proposal that treats textiles purely as beautiful objects misses what Impart is asking about.
• An output that does not match the maker. If your work samples do not show you can deliver a film, an exhibition, or a body of writing, do not promise it. Propose the form you can actually execute.
• A vague budget. A round figure with no breakdown suggests you have not planned the work. Itemise it.
• Ignoring the public dossier. The fellowship expects a research dossier co-developed with Impart. Applicants who plan only for a final artefact and not for shareable documentation are working against the program’s design.
• Leaving it late. The window closes August 31, 2026. Assembling a considered budget, timeline, and combined PDF takes longer than a weekend.

Frequently Asked Questions

How much is the grant? INR 5.5 lakh per fellowship, and two fellowships are awarded.

Do I have to live in South Asia? No. Applicants may reside anywhere in the world. The requirement is that the project engages with textile practices across the wider South Asia region.

Can a group or organisation apply? Yes. The fellowship is open to individuals across many roles, as well as to collectives and small organisations.

What kind of final output is expected? Outputs can take forms such as a film, essays or writing, an exhibition, or curatorial work, alongside project reports and a research dossier co-developed with Impart for public hosting.

When does the fellowship take place? The fellowship year runs January to December 2027, with awardees notified in December 2026.

How do I apply? Through an online form, submitting a project budget, a project timeline, and a combined PDF with your CV, work samples, and up to two letters of support.

How to Apply and Where to Learn More

Begin at the official Impart × Nalli Fellowships page, imp-art.org/fellowship-grant/impart-x-nalli-fellowships. Read the full brief, confirm that your subject sits inside the South Asia textile focus, and review the exact application requirements and current dates. Then sharpen your question, secure your access, and build a budget and timeline that make a year of real research credible. Assemble your combined PDF — CV, work samples, and up to two letters of support — well before the August 31, 2026 deadline.

For a researcher, journalist, designer, or archivist with a specific South Asian textile story worth telling, the Impart × Nalli Fellowships offer a rare combination: funding, a full year, and a public platform to share the result. Confirm the current-cycle details on the official page, then give yourself the weeks the application deserves.