Dear Mithun,

Sorry for the long message but its important to make people aware and expose such fake societies those do not exist or publish papers as they claim they do.

The InSc award is fake and does not bear any value at all if you mention it in your CV. Rather, mentioning the award in your CV can play against you. The InSc society itself is a scam and their objective is to collect money from scholars in an unethical way. Let me discuss in detail and share my experience:

1. At first InSc will find you based upon your CV/publications and then encourage all the PhDs, postdoc, researchers, professors to apply,

2. Then they will publish a 150 pages 'tentative awardee' list with thousands of names. You can then imagine how worthwhile it is! and God knows what is a 'tentative list' when you already announce awardees (funny).

3. Then they will force you to register their society to become a premium member by paying 5000 INR (India)/100 USD (aborad) and if you deny to pay they will deny you the award,

4. The object of the society is wicked and is clearly a well-organized scheme/scam/business-trick/crime to collect money and this award has no value in academia,

5. For my case, I am a member of several well-reputated societies like IEEE, OSA, SPIE, APS, and OSI (India) and received several awards/grants from IEEE, OSA and SPIE. So I was curious to discover what InSc is...after knowing from a friend!

6. I happily endorse many Indian scientific communities, therefore, I even offered them to compensate all the costs they borne to process my award once they send the certificate. They denied.

7. 5000 INR from individual person is not much, but you can calculate that how much money InSc collects by the scam,

8. In conclusion, of course *I did not pay anything, refused the award upfront and asked all my academician friends to stay away from InSc*. Being a member of IEEE, OSA, SPIE, APS, OSI and if I felt the InSc is worthwhile enough I already became a member of this society.

9. Overall, the money does not matter but it was a humiliating experience for me where a society ask you to 'buy' an award after they nominate you!!!

10. I already communicated with a few Govt. organizations/legal houses to verify if this society has a legal registration and waiting for their responses. They claim to be registered under MSME (India) but we will confirm it if they have the permission to collect money this way.

Therefore, do not just pay anything for such societies without having enough knowledge about them. Good luck! Hope it helps :-)

P.S.: They will also share you some samples of the certificates they printed. Don't go for it :-p

An addition: I asked a few people including some of the Indian researchers InSc invited to become an awardee from top international schools like Cambridge, Caltech, and so on. For a few cases, InSc mentioned their name in the 'tentative' awardee-list without even the candidates' permissions! This is not good. This is a 'private' business organization run by a few friends together who cunningly allured academitians and showing their names on their webpage sometimes without their permissions. It is subject to investigation if they have registration under MSME at all to do such business involving money.

They appear to be maintaining a bit of standards but then again, you need to pay to get the award!

That's the point here that this award has no worth. It is just a business organization run by a few friends from different backgrounds. No harm in that unless it is wicked. The trick comes when they publish a 'tentative list' of awardee. It is just to show how many students from good colleges are there (NITs, IITs, others) to allure everyone and make them confuse to pay. Then the real part comes, taking money else denying award. They invite some of us to be nominees and select all of them to maximize their collection. So no standard at all, you will get selected anyway. Next time I will see an InSc awardee, I will know, this person bought the award :p, and I will suspect his/her academic credential and credibility. Choice is yours ;-) Cheers!

Thanks Mr. Ramesh for your message.

Yes, please ignore such traps. There are plenty of reputed genuine National and International societies recognizing good researchers :-) Surely your hardworks will pay off. All the best.

Such mischievous trends in academia have to be stopped.

Link: https://www.thehindu.com/education/the-award-sellers/article26036108.ece

P. S.: It is my duty to inform you.

Thanks Raktim for the detailed reply. It is really helpful and saved me from being tricked. Recently I received the same email that I was selected as a receiver of the InSc award. Before my nomination they did not say about paying 5000 INR. Once nominated they started asking me for 5000 Rupees to buy the award. After reading about your experiences I deny them to pay. Suddenly the guy who was contacting me (Named Sachin) became rude and did not answer any further questions. I did not pay and ignore the 'fake award' :-)

I was almost convinced and trapped. Many thanks to this discussion thread.

We should take legal actions against InSc especially those who already paid 5000.

Special thanks to Mithun Thulasidas and Raktim Haldar You did a great job. Saving thousands of researchers.

I do not think legal action is possible Karthik Srinivasa

From a business perspective, it is not illegal, I guess.

But the quality of such things is very poor.

Thank you Karthik Srinivasa and Tirthankar Das for your kind words. Its my duty though. Vijaya Kittu Manda Yes you are right. Thanks for your suggestions. Apart from ethical ground if we really need to take an action, we need to enquire to UASL whether InSc is really ISO 9001:2015 certified and has a permission to conduct a business like this? Note that, even if you are certified, there are certain business rules you have to follow. You need to be transparent regarding your business regulations to the customers (here nominees) and here that transparency is not followed. I talked to a lawyer-friend. Lets see. But my purpose to make you all aware of this is already served... :-)

Hello

Today I got an email stating I am selected for the title "“InSc Young Researcher Award” followed by a phone call about further proceedings. Though I have applied for it myself, just giving a try. I was curious about its authenticity as we are asked to compulsory take Premium Member Package. Thank you Raktim Haldar for sharing the information and help all of us from getting conned. Stay Safe..

Thank you Neelam Gurung it is really good to see that more and more academicians are now being aware. Wish you good luck and a great career ahead.

They called me 3 times over the phone trying to persuade me to apply for the award. Even after the deadline they called me and said that the deadline is extended. When I said that I do not want to pay any money and I have other priorities the woman started saying "It will not take long to apply, and you get other benefits, etc". I was like "Why are you dying to give me this award?".. lol. At last, she gave up and said "I am not forcing you to apply.." but ironically she was!

The last time she called I asked her what was the names of the journals they publish. She said something, and I asked her what was the impact factor of the journal. For the next 5 minutes, I was explaining to her what impact factor and h-index meant. The call was concluded by me asking her to find out the impact factor of their journal(s). XD

Gaurav Tripathi

Debanuj Chatterjee Ah! you too! :-D Your story regarding the impact factor is funny. If they really want to run a good mission (like IEEE, OSA, SPIE, ELSEVIER, APS, and a few Indian organizations...e.g. OSI) the first step will be to stop deceiving people in the name of 'tentative awardee list' and really focus on doing good things. Even if its a business scheme, then also they have to be transparent from the beginning. Another such award is by 'VDGood' which you need to buy!

Yes VDGOOD and InSC are awards that we need to buy.. We always get such emails in our inbox begging us to buy awards. It's time we stay very very careful from such leaches

Just now I got a call from InSc....they are forcing me to pay 5000/- for young research award. At last I'm aware of their scam, I striked them literally.

Thank you for your answers, here mine.

InSc is complete scam to collect money from scholars or other proffesionals.

https://www.thehindu.com/education/the-award-sellers/article26036108.ece

They are trying from last 2years to make me their victim. I did not reply a single words of their email. As far I know, Award can not be bought.

Wow... I got email today... and after reading through all the comments .. I wonder how many people they have dupped by now...big scam

I had also applied for it and got selected for INSC Young Researcher award. After reading all your views, I decided not to pay and get it. Thank you all for the information.

I am constantly getting emails and text messages from the InSc Award organizers to apply for the INSC Young Researcher Award. I was very doubtful about InSc and the credibility and significance of their award and decided to check their website. Oh my goodness, they have even posted a "tentative" award list (LOL!).

While all I was doing this far was calculating the money that InSc would get with this (possible scam), I am amazed to see that so many from academia, scholars/faculty belonging to even reputed institutions, are applying for such things.

Thanks to this thread, now I know that I never have to reply to them :D

Thanks again.

Thank you for your information

Thank you for your information.

IT is totally fake with fake registration number. They are a scam. Do not reply or get lured by them.

I had a mail & call too from InSc for YRA, but after seeing this type of review, I am in doubt to get in touch with them.

P.S recommended!

Thank you for information I am also getting Young Researcher Award list

not to fall for it.. it is not valid and one needs to pay for the award ... so stay out of it..

Thank you for your reviews ,I was in dilemma ,i had thought of going for it but after going through the reviews i have decided not to pay money and go for it.

Thank you for the information l was about to pay the fee but just googled to check the details and came to know the truth here... thank a lot ..

Thank you very much for your valuable information. I have received a mail that you have been selected for the award and need to pay 5000k to receive the award. Your information saved me from the trap. I am grateful to you for taking time and detailed explanation of your own experience

Greetings of the day!

I hope this information would help all!

I have received an email conveying that I have been selected for the Young Researcher Award and I would required to pay 5000 INR to receive the Award, Certificate and Lifetime Premium Membership. I denied and asked that I'll only accept the award and certificate. Didn't receive any reply from them after that.

After being a member of different national and international institutions while living in India and in the USA like, NHRD, PMA, HSNC, etc. and also being a daughter of an internationally recognized scientist I am well aware about all world-class organizations. When I researched about authenticity of InSC from various authentic sources, my father, through this platform I have confirmed that this is a fake award.

Pl beware from such traps and don't pay anything to any such organizations.