SDG 1: No Poverty

1Research that tackles poverty

UPES researchers design low-cost technologies and study the economics of small businesses, so that health care, clean fuel and decent livelihoods reach people on low incomes.

The figures below cover UPES research publications on poverty and its causes from 2021 to 2025 (source: Scopus, October 2026).

What the research covers

Number of 2021–2025 papers on each theme (a paper can appear under more than one).

Most cited work

1. Water desalination using nanocelluloses/cellulose derivatives based membranes for sustainable future (Desalination, 2021), cited 143 times.
2. Financial Inclusion and Its Ripple Effects on Socio-Economic Development: A Comprehensive Review (Journal of Risk and Financial Management, 2024), cited 130 times.
3. Financial inclusion: The role of fintech and digital financial services in India (Indian Journal of Economics and Business, 2019), cited 97 times.
4. Overcoming water, sanitation, and hygiene challenges in critical regions of the global community (Water-Energy Nexus, 2024), cited 86 times.
5. Digital Financial Literacy and Its Impact on Financial Decision-Making of Women: Evidence from India (Journal of Risk and Financial Management, 2024), cited 75 times.

The full list of 77 publications since 2008, with links, is on the poverty research publications page (also available as a spreadsheet).

Research spotlights

Cancer screening women can afford

Reema Rawat and Prof Ashish Mathur developed a low-cost, portable cervical cancer screening device, funded by the Department of Science and Technology, so that women in remote areas without advanced hospitals can be tested.

R&D Newsletter Jan–Jun 2025

Cheap fuel from city waste

With a ₹97.4 lakh ANRF grant, Dr Siddharth Jain's team is developing technology that turns unsorted municipal waste into methanol at ₹25–30 a litre, enabling decentralised waste-to-fuel conversion while cutting emissions.

R&D Newsletter Jul–Dec 2025, p. 7

Helping small businesses survive the green transition

PhD scholar Shivansh Nautiyal, with Dr Sushil Kumar Rai, studied the barriers that stop India's micro, small and medium enterprises from adopting greener practices. The paper in Sustainable Development (2025) won a UPES PhD Spotlight Award.

R&D Newsletter Jul–Dec 2025, p. 13

Nutrition and income from the hills

Prof Padma Venkat uses traditional herbs and fruits to fight anaemia, and HILL promotes Bhanjira, a traditional Himalayan crop, to improve nutrition and raise farm incomes.

HILL projects

Other projects with the same aim include low-cost sensors that detect heavy metals and microbes in drinking water, and the SWACHH Incubation Centre's support for affordable public health innovations.

2Making university affordable

UPES treats affordability as part of admissions, alongside merit. Fee waivers at entry, a fully funded pathway for the most disadvantaged, emergency help for families in crisis, and help with government schemes mean that low household income alone need not stop a capable student from studying at UPES.

Help to get in

• Jyoti freeships. A 100% waiver of tuition and academic fees for meritorious students from families earning up to ₹8 lakh a year, with 51 places each year for undergraduate and postgraduate applicants. Students pay only a one-time refundable security deposit, and the freeship is renewed every year for students who keep a GPA of at least 6.0, pass all subjects and resubmit proof of family income.
• Sherryl Kintu Scholarship. Full tuition and academic fees for one selected student each year from a family earning under ₹8 lakh who shows financial need.
• Uttarakhand domicile scholarship. For 2025–26, a quarter of seats are reserved for residents of Uttarakhand, many from rural or low-income families, each with a 25% tuition waiver every semester.
• Merit and Shakti scholarships. Entrance-exam scholarships of 20% to 100% of tuition, with at least half reserved for women under Shakti. More than 5,000 scholarships for girls were offered between 2020 and 2022.
• Talented students from remote areas. Project Abhilasha brings meritorious students from marginalised parts of Uttarakhand to campus for a month-long residential coaching camp for engineering entrance exams.
• Project Naman. UPES fully funds the school education of one fallen soldier's child every year and gives scholarships to the children of five martyrs from Uttarakhand.

A full ride for the most disadvantaged

Since 2018, Project Protsaahan has selected at least two meritorious students a year from the Purkal Youth Development Society, a Dehradun NGO working with underprivileged, first-generation-learner families. UPES pays for their tuition, hostel, meals, uniforms, a laptop and the security deposit, plus an internship stipend of about ₹20,000, worth ₹10–15 lakh per student. Twenty-two students have benefited so far. Each is also given a faculty mentor to follow their academic progress and a Career Services adviser to help with internships and placements.

Beyond tuition: food, housing and transport

Some support is free and some is subsidised. Protsaahan scholars get housing, meals, a laptop and uniforms free, and every student gets free health care and counselling. Fee waivers and concessions subsidise the cost of study for thousands more.

• Free
• Subsidised

• Housing and meals for the poorest students. Protsaahan scholars live in campus hostels with their hostel fees and meals paid by UPES.
• Emergency cover in a crisis. During COVID-19, the We Care scholarship paid 100% of the all-inclusive fee, covering tuition and hostel, for students who lost a parent to the virus.
• Regular meals. Every hostel has its own mess serving four meals a day, included in the hostel fee, and both campuses have a food court and cafeterias.
• Getting around. A shuttle service links the Bidholi and Kandoli campuses with Dehradun city.

Students from lower-income countries

• Study in India. As a partner institution in the Government of India's Study in India programme, UPES offers tuition waivers of 100%, 50% or 25% to eligible international students, who can also receive government support for admission costs, accommodation and food.
• Merit-cum-Means concession. A financial concession for international applicants from low-income families.
• International scholarships. Tuition waivers of 10–30% for undergraduate and 20% for postgraduate international students, based on their previous results.

Help to stay and finish

• When a family loses its earner. A student who loses an earning parent or guardian during the course receives a fee concession of ₹50,000 every semester until the final semester, as long as they keep up their studies.
• Loans and government schemes. UPES has tie-ups with Axis Bank, State Bank of India, HDFC Credila and others for education loans, and helps eligible students apply for Uttarakhand government and National Scholarship Portal schemes.
• Remedial classes. Students who score below 40% in a mid-term exam get extra classes in that subject, which especially helps those from schools with fewer resources.
• A mentor for every student. Each mentor guides about 25 students, from settling in during the first year to career planning and, in the final year, meeting alumni and industry professionals.
• Free health care and counselling. Free consultations and medicines on campus, a 24-hour ambulance, ₹1 lakh of medical insurance for every student, and free, confidential counselling.
• Ready for work. Career Services' EDGE programme offers personality profiling, aptitude tests, resume and interview workshops, LinkedIn profile building, alumni mentoring and preparation for government and competitive exams. Employability Boot Camps bring in industry experts and alumni to prepare students for recruitment.
• Confidence and soft skills. The three-day Personality Enhancement Programme, run with Dale Carnegie, builds behavioural, people and presentation skills, and the Placement Selection Improvement programme uses mock interviews and expert feedback to close skill gaps before placements.
• Well-being. Yoga and meditation sessions help students manage stress and stay focused.
• An equal footing. A smart-casual dress code reduces visible differences in wealth between students.

3Start-ups and livelihoods

UPES runs a full support system for people in and around Dehradun who want to turn a sustainable idea into a business: incubators, grants and investment, mentoring, training and community programmes that reach well beyond its own students.

Incubators open to the community

• Runway Incubator. Launched in 2021 by the School of Business, Runway offers mentoring, seed funding, legal support and co-working space across sectors from health and education to deep-tech and sustainability. It is a recognised incubator under the Uttarakhand Startup Policy, so it can certify start-ups from across the state for government benefits.
• Inclusive Technology Business Incubator. A ₹4.9 crore grant under the Department of Science and Technology's NIDHI programme (₹3.88 crore from DST and ₹1.02 crore from UPES) set up the first i-TBI in Uttarakhand at UPES. Its Ignition Grant 2.0 gives early-stage innovators up to ₹10 lakh in non-dilutive funding, with mentoring, to build a working prototype.
• UPES Council for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (UCIE). Open to entrepreneurs from outside UPES as well as students, alumni and staff, UCIE works with more than 30 incubatees in energy, transport and green technology, and is knowledge partner to JumpStart, Uttarakhand's first private co-working hub and incubator.
• SWACHH Incubation Centre. Funded by BIRAC, the first SPARSH-BIRAC centre in Uttarakhand supports young social innovators building affordable solutions in public health, climate resilience and farm-to-plate food.

Mentoring, training and funding

• An 8–10 week incubation programme covering idea validation, market research, finance, building a minimum viable product, and company registration and compliance.
• A mentor for every start-up from UPES faculty, alumni founders, industry experts and investors, plus access to university labs, equipment and co-working space.
• Partners who open doors, including the Indian Angel Network, TiE Dehradun, IIT Ropar, CII and FICCI. Zoho provides technology credits to incubated start-ups.
• The Pitch. UPES's investor showcase awarded about ₹3 crore to start-ups from across India in July 2025, including Envinova Smartech, which builds solar-powered huts for off-grid communities. The Pitch 3.0 in 2026 offers up to ₹25 lakh, and up to ₹50 lakh for exceptional ventures.
• Protecting ideas. As Uttarakhand's Technology and Innovation Support Centre since 2023, UPES helps local innovators protect their inventions. It ran a September 2025 workshop with Startup Uttarakhand, UCOST and the FICCI IP Cell on intellectual property for MSMEs and start-ups, and Runway hosted a World IP Day webinar with a Government of India patent examiner on 28 April 2025.
• Government support schemes. In 2025 a senior DSIR official visited UPES to explain schemes such as PRISM, which funds innovations by individuals, start-ups and MSMEs.

Money for local entrepreneurs

UPES does not let a lack of early capital stop a good, sustainable business, whether its founder studies at UPES or comes from the wider Uttarakhand community.

• Seed grants. Every strong venture in a Runway cohort can receive a ₹1 lakh Ignition Grant for prototyping and validation, and the DST-backed Ignition Grant 2.0 gives up to ₹10 lakh in non-dilutive funding.
• Affordable health innovation. UPES hosts the BIRAC SPARSH programme, which channels a ₹4.02 crore grant to health-tech and biotech start-ups building affordable health care. One of them, Genetico Research and Diagnostics, develops tests for rare genetic disorders and works with AIIMS Delhi.
• Founders from smaller towns. As an implementing partner of MeitY's GENESIS scheme, Runway helps entrepreneurs in Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities such as Dehradun reach grants of up to ₹10 lakh to take an idea to market.
• State grants. As a recognised nodal incubator, UPES channels Startup Uttarakhand grants and challenge prizes to local founders. Mulya Creation, a Dehradun start-up that makes eco-dyed fabric from discarded flowers and trains local women artisans, received about ₹10 lakh in state grant funding.
• Socially impactful start-ups. HDFC Bank's Parivartan programme has set aside a ₹60 lakh grant pool through Runway for socially impactful and sustainable start-ups.

Reaching the wider community

• Startup Uttarakhand. UPES hosts bootcamps and challenges for aspiring entrepreneurs across the state, and in March 2025 hosted a two-day state start-up summit for founders and investors.
• Techstars Startup Weekend Dehradun. A 54-hour event, open to public registration, where young people form teams, build a business idea and pitch it to mentors and judges, most recently in September 2024.
• School students. The Future Founders Challenge 2026 introduces students in Classes 9 to 12 across India to entrepreneurship, and Runway's "Become a Community Problem Solver" programme reached 155 students at GIC Paundha in August 2026.
• Skills for jobs. The Bajaj Engineering Skills Training (BEST) Centre on campus trains engineering and diploma graduates in mechatronics, automation and smart manufacturing.
• Women's livelihoods. The Himalayan Institute for Learning and Leadership (HILL) builds skills and livelihood opportunities for women across the region, and Prof Padma Venkat trains rural women and self-help groups in green technologies.
• Coming next. With ₹2.5 crore from NITI Aayog's Atal Innovation Mission, UPES is planning an Atal Community Innovation Centre to give grassroots innovators from remote areas mentoring, facilities and funding for challenges such as hill farming, water and clean energy.

Businesses that grew from UPES

• UGreen Technology. Founded in 2022 by alumnus Gaurav Dwivedi and based in Dehradun, it captures carbon dioxide from industry and turns it into reusable fuel.
• Envinova Smartech. Builds smart solar huts that give off-grid communities charging, connectivity and workspace.
• Homversity. Founded by alumnus Saurav Kumar Sinha, it helps students in cities such as Dehradun find safe, affordable housing, and raised USD 1 million in pre-Series A funding.
• Mulya Creation. Founded by Alisha Maindoliya in Dehradun, it turns discarded flowers into eco-dyed fabrics while giving local women artisans skills and work, and represented Uttarakhand's textile sector at Bharat Tex 2026.
• Cognecto. Founded by computer science alumni, it uses AI to make mining and construction safer and more efficient, and raised ₹4 crore in seed funding.

4Access to basic services

UPES organises training and outreach that bring health care, clean water and sanitation, energy, education and digital skills to villages and families around its campuses.

UPES delivers most of this work directly, through its own staff, students and clinics. It also works indirectly, by placing every first-year student with NGOs that run services in poor communities through the Srijan Social Internship.

• Directly
• Indirectly

Health

• Health care at the doorstep. Since 2008 a free medical mobile van run with Sewa Bharti has taken a doctor and medicines to nearby villages, and UPES Infirmary teams hold free health camps in underserved villages such as Misraspatti, Kharakhet and Dhaulas.
• Ending period poverty. Project Lakhon Khawahishen, run with DivIn Pro, gives reusable menstrual cups and hygiene education to about 1,200 women from the university's ground staff and villages including Bakarna, Kharakhet, Pulsani and Dhaulas, with ASHA and Anganwadi workers volunteering.
• Nutrition and donation drives. UPES has assessed the nutritional status of children and families across three districts of Uttarakhand, and hosts blood and eye donation camps on campus.

Water, sanitation and energy

• Cleaner villages. Through Project Swachhata, students and staff run cleanliness and hygiene drives in neighbouring villages as part of the Swachh Bharat Mission, and NSS volunteers lead sanitation awareness campaigns.
• Watermills for hill incomes. A UPES-led collaboration is reviving and modernising traditional watermills in Uttarakhand's hill villages to bring small-scale clean power and raise rural incomes where extending the grid is costly.
• Off-grid power. UPES students have designed a solar tree with LED lights, USB ports and power sockets that can charge phones and laptops away from the grid.

Education

• Village schools. Under EDUDHURMA, UPES supports 14 local schools. Projects Raftaar and Bodh work on all-round development and reading comprehension at eight adopted government primary schools, Project Vriddhi teaches English and Maths, and UPES runs a smart classroom at Government High School, Upper Kandoli.
• Daughters of UPES. Project Payal gives meritorious girls from poor families in nearby villages financial support and mentoring from faculty and student volunteers.
• Every first-year student serves. The Srijan Social Internship sends all first-year students to work with NGOs for six to eight weeks on education, rural development and community welfare, and students tutor children at LearnShala centres and after-school maths and science camps.
• Children of migrant workers. Project Samvedna provides day care and education for the children of construction workers, most of them women, working on UPES campuses.

Digital skills and livelihoods

• DigitalDhaam. Free computer and internet training for teachers, middle-school students, homemakers and other residents of villages near campus.
• Support staff. UPES trains its support staff in basic computer skills and English communication, starting with a cohort of 20.
• Rural women artisans. Project Vikalp, a Rural Women Technology Park, trains women from neighbouring villages to use digital tools to design and market their crafts.
• A second chance. UPES has trained inmates of Dehradun District Jail in computer hardware and networking to improve their job prospects after release.
• Legal awareness. The UPES Legal Aid Clinic runs community sessions, including body-safety sessions for children at government schools near campus.
• Village development. Project Utthan has reached about 155 families around Dehradun.

5Shaping policy to end poverty

UPES works with village, state, national and United Nations partners to design and deliver programmes that tackle poverty in its many forms, from malnutrition to lost livelihoods.

• Local
• Regional
• National
• Global

Regional: Uttarakhand

• Fighting hidden hunger. UPES hosted Uttarakhand's first Technical Support Unit for Large-Scale Food Fortification, funded by the United Nations World Food Programme with the state government, giving technical support to state departments that fortify staple foods such as rice with essential micronutrients.
• Model villages. Through Project Utthan, UPES has worked with the Government of Uttarakhand to develop Dhalani and Koti in Dehradun district as model villages for health care, education and livelihoods, as a template other remote communities can follow.
• Watermills for hill incomes. A UPES-led network of experts is reviving traditional watermills in mountain villages, showing planners a low-cost way to bring power and income to places the grid does not reach.

National and global

• Post-COVID recovery. UPES is an implementer and knowledge partner in the Community Resilience Resource Centres programme of the Department of Science and Technology and the United Nations Development Programme, which builds science- and innovation-based livelihoods and social enterprises in communities hit by the pandemic.
• At the United Nations. In May 2023, Prof Neelu Jyothi Ahuja of the School of Computer Science presented UPES's work as a Principal Investigator at the UN Multi-Stakeholder Forum on Science, Technology and Innovation, at a DST–UNDP session that drew participants from 40 countries.

Local

• LearnShala centres. UPES has upgraded learning centres in government primary schools in villages including Kandoli, Misraspatti, Donga and Phulsani.
• Markets for local makers. With Dehradun NGOs, UPES students organise fairs such as a Diwali Mela where products made by marginalised women, orphaned children and small artisans are sold directly to the public.
• Joy of Giving. During DaanUtsav each year, students and staff collect and distribute clothes, books and other essentials to families in need near campus.

All sources

Every website and document used in this report, and the sections it supports.