IIM-A to get 12 more Research Chairs

Aiming at focused research combining course development and engagement with practice and policy, the Indian Institute of Management - Ahmedabad (IIMA) has identified a total of 15 chairs with specialisation in areas such as leadership, strategic management and societal development.

While three of them have already been announced, the institute plans to announce 12 more in due course of time, informed Ashish Nanda, Director, IIMA.

The three chairs already in place are the Nabard Chair in Agri-business, the RBI Chair in Finance and Economics and the JSW Chair in Innovation and Public Policy.

The institute has received commitments from top institutions and donors to set up such chairs to further targeted research.

"We had announced the first chair in October last year. We hope to announce a few more chairs in the coming days as we have already received commitments from several top institutions and donors," Nanda told BusinessLine .

Around Rs 35 crore has been committed by the likes of Infosys, ICICI Bank, Kasturbhai Lalbhai, PriceWaterhouseCoopers and Edleweiss, among others.

"The chairs are meant to honour our faculty who are doing cutting-edge work. The work at practice-oriented institutions like IIMA is different from what is narrowly defined as cutting-edge research -- found in most non-practice-oriented universities," said Nanda.

"We have asked people from outside and inside (within IIMA) to apply to head these chairs. For the 15 chairs, we have received overall commitments of about Rs 35 crore. However, money is not that important for these chairs, what is important is the quality of work and outcome for the practice and policy," Nanda said.

According to Nanda, the assignment of these chairs was based on three aspects. "The first is research, second is teaching and course development and the third is engagement with practice (industry) and policy," he added.

Explaining the process of nomination and commissioning of chairs, Nanda said the institute invites nominations both internally and externally.

"There is an external selection committee which looks at all the nominations and suggests some names. Then we have an internal selection committee. They need to meet the standards of IIMA faculty. So at the end of that we identify a chair. Each chair has to go through this practice," he said.

"If we don't get the right person for the chair, we might go back to the donor and tell them to revise the purpose to something else, like visiting lectures or scholarships," he said.

Currently, the Nabard Chair in Agri-business is assigned to IIM-A faculty Vasant Gandhi, the RBI Chair in Finance and Economics is headed by Abhiman Das and the JSW Chair in Innovation and Public Policy is assigned to Rakesh Basant.

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