Research Projects

To position the Centre for Arts, Culture and Social Research (CACSR) as a high-impact, legally compliant academic think-tank under the Shivagra Kalamanch Foundation (Section 8 Company), its research framework must be built on strict structural guidelines. This structure ensures seamless eligibility for prestigious funding bodies like the ICSSR, ICHR, UGC, and corporate CSR boards.

Since all academic and executive leadership tracks function on a voluntary, non-salaried basis , 100% of the project grants are directed straight into field operations, data collection, and asset archiving.

The operational blueprint, methodologies, and strict compliance rules for CACSR Research Projects are structured as follows:

1. Core Research Framework & Thrust Areas

All research projects undertaken at CACSR must align with the institutional mandate to study human aesthetics alongside evolving social structures. The empirical and theoretical focus is strictly bounded within the following six thrust areas:

• Visual Culture & Art History: Investigating historical and contemporary visual narratives, aesthetics, and iconography.

• Folk & Tribal Arts: Systematic, field-driven tracking and documentation of indigenous art forms, dying material crafts, and local expressions—with a strong geographical focus on regions like Southern Rajasthan (Banswara).

• Heritage Studies: Critical mapping, preservation, and architectural or textual documentation of physical and material cultural landmarks.

• Sociology & Anthropology: Fieldwork-centric investigations into human cultural evolution, tribal community kinship, oral histories, and socio-economic structures.

• Media & Cultural Studies: Critical evaluation of media representations, digital subcultures, and their impact on public discourse and social theory.

• Digital Humanities: Deploying technology to build open-access, searchable knowledge repositories, ensuring that grass-roots research is accessible globally.

2. Project Classification & Funding Pipelines

Research projects at CACSR are executed under two distinct financial and administrative setups:

A. Sponsored External Projects (Grant-Compliant)

These are high-priority, macro-level projects funded entirely by external statutory bodies or corporate grants:

• Government & Academic Grants: Formulating rigorous project proposals for the ICSSR (Major/Minor Projects), ICHR Fellowship-backed research, or specialized schemes under the Ministry of Culture.

• Corporate CSR Sponsorships: Partnering with industries under Schedule VII of the Indian Companies Act, 2013, to execute projects focused on national heritage protection and the conservation of traditional tribal art forms.

B. Institutional Seed Projects (Corpus-Funded)

These are micro-level, pilot exploratory projects aimed at generating preliminary data before applying for larger national grants:

• Financed exclusively through the institutional Academic Corpus Fund (built from term-based membership subscriptions and internal year-end surpluses).

• Executed primarily by the selected CACSR Research Fellows under the mandatory guidance of Senior/Eminent Fellows.

3. Mandatory Methodological Workflow

To maintain absolute data purity and satisfy statutory auditors, every research project must follow a strict, predefined execution pipeline:

[Project Proposal & Budget Blueprint] 
                 ⬇
[Approval by the Board of Directors & Sign-off]
                 ⬇
[Ethical Review Committee Clearance]
                 ⬇
[Fieldwork Execution & Digital Asset Mapping]
                 ⬇
[Double-Blind Peer Review & Anti-Plagiarism Scan]
                 ⬇
[Final Archiving on cacsr.in & Statutory Reporting]

1. Pre-Approval & Budget Sign-off: No project can be initiated without a detailed proposal and budget blueprint formally approved via a Board Resolution of the Shivagra Kalamanch Foundation.

2. Ethical Clearance (Human Subjects): Projects involving direct community field research, oral interviews, or interaction with indigenous groups must secure prior informed written consent from all participants. The project must pass the scrutiny of the internal Ethical Review Committee.

3. Data Authenticity & Anti-Plagiarism Controls: All field field-notes, audio-visual logs, and final manuscripts must undergo rigid validation. In strict compliance with UGC regulations, the final report must be scanned through premium plagiarism detection tools to ensure a similarity index of less than 10%.

4. Permanent Digital Archiving: Upon conclusion, raw research data, regional documentation maps, and translated texts must be securely backed up and uploaded to the open-access Digital Knowledge Repository on cacsr.in.

4. Strict Financial Governance & Compliance Rules

To prevent regulatory friction with the Ministry of Corporate Affairs and funding bodies, all research project financials operate under a rigid accountability matrix:

• The Cost-Center Principle: CACSR does not operate an independent bank account. All project funds, grants, or donations are received directly into the primary account of the Shivagra Kalamanch Foundation under a specific, isolated ledger head (Cost Code) created for that exact project.

• Zero Fund Diversion: All expenditures must strictly track the predefined, approved project heads. Any unauthorized diversion of project funds to general administrative costs or other projects is strictly prohibited.

• Mandatory Reporting Metrics: The Project Coordinator and the Honorary Finance Coordinator are legally responsible for preparing and delivering time-bound, verified documentation to the funding agency. This includes the Utilization Certificate (UC), Statement of Expenditure (SoE), and a Chartered Accountant-certified audit report.

• Real-Time PFMS Tracking: Where government grants are involved, all expenditure mapping, vendor payments, and stipend distribution must be fully integrated and tracked via the Public Financial Management System (PFMS).

• The Non-Profit Baseline: No portion of project funds can be pocketed as personal profit, incentives, or bonuses by any member or office bearer of the institution. Payments out of the project budget are strictly limited to verified, third-party vendor invoices (e.g., printing, hiring field equipment) or approved institutional stipends for temporary project assistants formally appointed by the Board.

Official Statutory Citation: The Centre for Arts, Culture and Social Research (CACSR) operates strictly as an internal Academic & Research Wing of the Shivagra Kalamanch Foundation, a Section 8 Company registered under the Companies Act, 2013, Government of India. All operational milestones, research project workflows, and financial tracking comply seamlessly with statutory corporate audits, ICSSR, UGC, ICHR, and corporate CSR parameters. Registered Office: Banswara, Rajasthan. Central Email: admin.cacsr@gmail.com.