The prestigious International Green Gown Awards have recognised Amrita’s E4Life PhD in Sustainable Development for its work in rural India. Under the Amrita School for Sustainable Futures, 100+ fully funded doctoral fellowships under various thematic areas of Sustainable Development are offered.

The honour was bestowed in the category of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Sustainability. It emphasised the inspiring title of “E4Life – Education for Life” and how the four Es stand for Experience, Embrace, Empower, and Engage.

The funding provides many underprivileged students access to a doctoral program with low financial burdens and helps create an atmosphere to focus solely on research. This leads to developing effective societal impact in addition to research outcomes.

Another key element is how E4Life is integrated with a comprehensive yet flexible Experiential Learning Curriculum that aims to enrol and cater to candidates from various disciplines.

India’s socio-economic growth and development depend upon the sustenance of its rural communities, as 70% of its population live in rural villages. These communities form the backbone of the country. Despite the country’s overall progress, the rural population has been facing numerous pressing problems that need to be addressed.

Some of the challenges they face include extremely poor access to basic facilities and infrastructure, poverty, illiteracy, malnutrition, and waste management, along with the unexpected impact of climate change and extreme weather conditions that result in devastating natural disasters.

The Green Gown Awards remarked upon the use, implementation, and benefits of participatory rural appraisal techniques. E4Life’s co-design and co-implementation methods work directly with the community members. Gaining their trust and participation, this means a quicker adoption of sustainable solutions, and thus leads to community self-reliance.

The award also applauded how E4Life does not limit itself to the standard metric of research outcomes alone, but also focuses on the societal outcomes for each project in every village of implementation. As well, it noted how E4Life is highly diverse by including many international students and faculty from all socio-economic and cultural backgrounds.