Career at Baif
Build a meaningful career
Create a lasting impact
We invite professionals and individuals committed to rural rejuvenation, to devote some amount of their spare time to BAIF field programmes. Volunteering with BAIF promises to be a stimulating experience as it will ensure personally contributing to community development.
Full Time Opportunities
Grassroots Development presents a vast canvas of challenges and opportunities for development professionals, field practitioners, technologists and aspiring youth to translate their dreams for rural renewal, into action and themselves get ‘renewed’ in the process. This journey in rural development may be explored at BAIF through fellowships, internships and volunteering opportunities or in the form of careers that promise growth, enrichment and fulfillment. BAIF is also recognized as a Centre for Doctoral Research by Savitribai Phule Pune University for Environmental Sciences and Botany.
The details of engagement opportunities relating to taking up a career with BAIF are available here.
Ph.D. Research Centre
Central Research Station, BAIF Development Research Foundation Urulikanchan is a recognized research centre of Savitribai Phule Pune University (SPPU) for conducting Ph.D. programmes in Environmental Science and Biotechnology.
The centre hosts experienced research guides: Dr. Kauthale and Dr. Bahulikar for Environmental Science, and Dr. Bahulikar, Dr. Santosh, and Dr. Velu for Biotechnology. ResearchGate links for all guides has been provided below.
Currently, five research scholars are pursuing their Ph.D. at the centre, and one student has successfully completed the programmes. With strong faculty support, active research programmes, and well-established laboratory and field facilities, the centre provides an excellent environment for advanced research.
New Ph.D. aspirants in Environmental Science and Biotechnology are welcome to join and contribute to ongoing research and development initiatives.
The Centre is headed by
Dr. Jayant Khadse
Research Gate Profiles
Fellowships
BAIF–SBI Foundation Youth for India Fellowship: A Journey of Youth, Innovation and Rural Transformation
“The future of India is shaped not only in cities, but in its villages—when youth choose to walk alongside communities”
India’s youth are its greatest demographic strength—curious, capable and deeply motivated to create meaningful change. At BAIF, this belief has found a powerful expression through a long-standing partnership with SBI Foundation’s flagship Youth for India (YFI) Fellowship Programme. Since the last 15 years, this collaboration has enabled young professionals from across the country to immerse themselves in rural and tribal India, co-creating solutions that are grounded, inclusive and sustainable.
“A Partnership built on Shared Purpose”
The association with the Youth for India Fellowship began in 2011 and has since grown into a deeply trusted and value-driven partnership. Across 13 fellowship batches, BAIF has hosted 100+ fellows, with placements in remote rural and tribal landscapes across Maharashtra, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, Rajasthan and Uttarakhand.
The partnership rests on a shared conviction: when youth are provided with the right ecosystem—mentorship, exposure and trust—they can become transformative agents of rural change. The one-year residential fellowship offers fellows not just a project, but a lived experience of village life—its realities, resilience and possibilities.
“Each fellow brings fresh questions, new ideas and renewed energy—challenging us to look at development through younger, sharper lenses” Living the Village Reality”
Youth for India fellows associated with BAIF, live within communities, learning local traditions, languages and aspirations while building relationships based on trust and mutual respect. This deep immersion enables them to move beyond surface-level interventions and respond meaningfully to grassroots needs.
Over the years, fellows have worked across themes such as rural livelihoods, education, health and nutrition, women’s empowerment, water security, renewable energy, climate-smart agriculture and social enterprise development. Their contributions have ranged from strengthening schools and adolescent health programmes to enabling SHGs, FPOs and rural youth to access skills, markets and government entitlements.
“Development becomes real when solutions are co-created—not delivered”
Many fellow-led ideas have gone on to inform and enrich BAIF’s own programme strategies, introducing contemporary tools, digital outreach, entrepreneurial thinking and innovative processes at the grassroots.
“Fostering Innovation through Sahyog”
A distinct feature of this partnership is the SBI-YFI Sahyog Fund—a catalytic support mechanism created by SBI Foundation that enables promising fellow-led initiatives to move from ideas to action. Sahyog supports pilots, prototypes, scaling and replication of interventions that demonstrate strong community relevance and sustainability potential. Several initiatives have evolved into women-led enterprises and community institutions—including millet-based food enterprises, bamboo and pine-needle crafts, nutrition gardens, adolescent wellness programmes, solar applications and tribal tourism with its focus on the mystic tribal culture.
“When youth innovation meets community wisdom, livelihoods take root, Impact that extends beyond the Fellowship”
The impact extends well beyond the one-year period. Many BAIF-hosted fellows have continued their engagement with rural development—establishing social enterprises, founding NGOs, strengthening producer collectives or pursuing careers anchored in grassroots realities.
For BAIF, the fellowship has also emerged as a powerful youth talent engagement platform, bringing in professionals from diverse academic and professional backgrounds. Even during the COVID-19 pandemic, fellows demonstrated extraordinary commitment—staying back in villages, supporting community surveys, awareness campaigns and field responses alongside BAIF teams.
“With every new batch of fellows, hope is renewed—for communities, for institutions, and for the future of rural India”
The BAIF–SBI Foundation Youth for India Fellowship partnership stands as a living testament to the power of youth-led, community-rooted development—where learning flows both ways, and impact grows with trust.
“Other Fellowship Opportunities at BAIF “
BAIF welcomes motivated youth and professionals interested in contributing to the rural development cause through short to medium-term fellowships. BAIF is open to hosting fellows whose interests and proposed themes align with BAIF’s broad development work – livelihoods, agriculture and natural resources management, climate resilience, nutrition, gender and inclusive development.
Prospective fellows can approach BAIF with their area of interest and fellowship theme.
Duration: Fellowships may range from 6 months to 2 years.
Interested candidates may apply by submitting a brief Concept Note and their profile to baif@baif.org.in