Open Call: Funding New Ideas to Improve the Welfare of Farmed Fishes in India
Summary
We are launching a funding call for developing and studying novel interventions aimed at significantly improving the welfare of farmed fishes in India. We are looking for field interventions, technological solutions or actionable research that can form the basis of future, scalable FWI field programs relevant for Indian aquaculture.
Proposals will be accepted until November 18th, 2026 (18:00 Indian Standard Time).
More information (including submission details) can be found here.
Background
FWI currently has one core program in India, the Alliance for Responsible Aquaculture (ARA). This program aims to improve the welfare of fishes by measuring water quality at member farms, and recommending corrective actions to farmers in the event of water quality being a concern. We are committed to increasing our impact by improving the ARA and/or expanding the number of programs we run.
Over the past three years we have invested in R&D efforts to identify and test new interventions that could form the basis of new scalable programs. Examples of ideas that we have explored/are exploring include:
Remote sensing to allow us to monitor water quality at fish farms using satellite imagery, forgoing the need to send staff to farms for routine water quality monitoring.
A bespoke feed formulation designed as an improvement over the typically used feed for Indian major carps (IMCs) to better meet fishes’ nutritional requirements and be less prone to causing water quality issues.
Improved slaughter methods for farmed IMCs, including investigations around pre-slaughter stunning and chill killing, to reduce the suffering fishes experience compared to the air asphyxiation method currently employed during harvesting.
Early detection of lice infection using a simple sentinel system to inform farmers’ treatment decisions, with a view towards improving fish welfare by reducing the duration and/or severity of lice outbreaks and reducing exposure to harmful chemicals.
Despite our best efforts, we have not yet succeeded in taking a concept—aside from the ARA—to the stage where it’s ready to be rolled out as a program. Some of our ideas have fallen at the proof-of-concept stage (e.g., remote sensing); some of our ideas present challenges in terms of generating sufficient buy-in amongst the targeted stakeholders (e.g., improved slaughter). In general, it has proven challenging to hone in on project ideas for India that are considered scalable and impactful.
Opening Up the Ideation and Testing Process
To boost our chances of successfully expanding our portfolio of interventions so that we can positively impact the lives of many more fishes, we are opening up the ideation and testing process to external parties with the enticement of funding opportunities. This approach is in parallel to our in-house R&D efforts. We hope that this approach could yield novel intervention ideas that we have not considered to date, and expedite the process of testing them to establish proof-of-concept or validate field suitability. Projects that successfully emerge through the development and testing phase could lead us to launching new programs based around these concepts.
With this objective in mind, we are now issuing a funding call to identify suitable projects.
Request for Proposals
FWI invites proposals from any interested party for developing and establishing proof-of-concept and/or testing field suitability of novel interventions aimed at significantly improving the welfare of farmed fishes in India. We are offering funding to develop and test ideas that, if promising, FWI could take forward and develop scalable programs to support the relevant stakeholders (e.g., fish farmers).
For this funding call, we will not fund basic research ideas for which the output has no direct link to a potential future program aimed at improving fish welfare. Funding of projects is predicated on the output(s) feeding into FWI’s portfolio of interventions.
We offer standard grant amounts up to INR 10,00,000 (approx USD 10,000) and exceptional grant amounts up to INR 50,00,000 (approx USD 50,000).
This funding call is open to anyone, although the work must be relevant for Indian aquaculture. We encourage submissions from academic institutions, companies, non-profit organisations, individuals/groups, or any party that has an idea that they believe can be applied to improving the welfare of farmed fishes in India.
Interested parties are invited to submit a brief proposal to FWI by November 18th, 2026. Full details, along with the template for proposals, can be found here. Please share this with anyone who could be interested in submitting a proposal. Thank you!
