Government plans single agency for social science research

India may soon replace the multiple agencies that have headed its social science research for four decades with a single overarching body in a desperate government bid to halt a slippery slide in the quality of the country’s humanities research.

The Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) is preparing a blueprint to create a new social science research agency that will end the existence of the Indian Council for Historical Research (ICHR), the Indian Council for Social Science Research (ICSSR) and the Indian Council for Philosophical Research (ICPR).

The single new agency will subsume the three existing bodies that are mandated to head the nation’s social science research, but that were slammed as failures in a first-of-its kind review of their performance by government appointed expert panels, top government sources have told HT.

The ICHR, ICSSR and the ICPR – set up between 1969 and 1977 – are tasked with the responsibility of identifying key areas of humanities research, pinpointing the best researchers in these areas, and then funding research projects. But the panels – appointed by former HRD minister Kapil Sibal – that reviewed the ICHR, ICSSR and the ICPR concluded that the research agencies were severely underfunded, opaque in their selection of research to fund, and wrapped in layers of bureaucracy that make independent scholarly work difficult.

The ICPR review, carried out by widely respected philosophers Mrinal Miri and Rajeev Bhargava, also “strongly” recommended a single research agency for the humanities – instead of multiple bodies that often overlap in their work, and lack an inter-disciplinary approach, as is the case at present.

The government may therefore consider setting up a Council for the Promotion of Research in Humanities which will include philosophy, history, literature and literary studies, linguistics, political thought and anthropology,” Miri and Bhargava wrote in their review. “We are aware that such a step will require much deeper thought than we have been able to afford. But we do recommend very strongly that the government take initiative towards such a step.”

In two years of deliberations of the recommendations of the review panels, the HRD ministry mulled ways to strengthen the current research agencies but eventually picked an overarching social science research body as the answer.

Source: Hindustan Times, May 28, 2013

Lack of funds hampers social science research in India

The poor state of Indian Council of Social Science Research (ICSSR), the leading body that funds and promotes social science research in the country, brought out by the review committee recently has resulted in Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) setting up a separate sub-group to decide on 12th Five Year Plan funding. It could, for the first time, begin targeted funding for ICSSR and social science research in the next plan.

ICSSR Chairperson Sukhdeo Thorat’s recent presentation to HRD minister Kapil Sibal on the roadmap for social science research in general and ICSSR in particular brings out the yawning gap between the minister’s aspiration to step up research and the ground situation. “Even if emergency measures are taken, it would take at least another ten years for social science research in India to make an international presence,” a senior ICSSR official said.

More than the review committee, ICSSR’s own study brings out the real picture. Take the case of research projects. During the 11th Plan, ICSSR could sanction only 30% of research proposals. Out of the sanctioned ones, 12% required less than Rs. 200,000 and 65% between Rs. 200,000 to 500,000. ICSSR admits that low funding affected quality. ICSSR pointed out that out of 250,000 teachers in social sciences, on an average 8,333 teachers require research grants. But it is so far being given to only 693 teachers leaving a deficit of 7,640.

ICSSR also found that half the teachers in social sciences were without M.Phil. and Ph.D., making it necessary that they be given fellowships. The picture is again very dismal. Against the current annual requirement of fellowship to 9,500 teachers, only 666 teachers are being supported. It needs to be pointed out that the bulk (661) of 666 fellowships comes from UGC (University Grants Commission) and only five per year from ICSSR.

A bigger deficit between demand and supply is seen in case of fellowship to students for M.Phil./Ph/D. While the requirement is for 10,000 fellowships, only 2,055 is given out annually. Again the bulk of fellowships (2,000) is from UGC and only 55 from ICSSR.

Then there is the story of lack of international collaborations between Indian and foreign scholars and ICSSR failing to meet all demands from its meagre resources. The overall story is that China has overtaken India in social science research. Considering that it is a late entrant, even Brazil is faring better in many respects.

A recent study showed that India is on 13th rank among 26 countries with China placed on seventh rank and Brazil 21. Between 1997 and 2007, China’s share grew from .85% to 3.63% and India from .91% to 1.01%. India fell behind in terms of co-authored papers, the ration being 27.75% for Brazil, 15.18% for China and 14.96% for India. The most productive institutions in terms of scholarly work is from China and Brazil. From India only two universities – Delhi University and JNU – figure in the list.

Source: The Times of India, October 5, 2011

Social Science Research in India: Panel recommends ICSSR revamp

Recommending the strengthening of the Indian Council of Social Science Research (ICSSR) to enable it to fulfil its role of fostering and promoting social science research, an official committee said that funding was a major issue that had adversely affected the performance of this institution.

To provide some measure of financial autonomy, the committee’s report suggests that the ICSSR should create a corpus of about Rs. 1,000 crore (Rs. 10 billion) as a complement to funds from other sources for funding research and attracting researchers. It has also recommended major changes in the governance pattern. A preliminary analysis of government funding patterns clearly indicates that social science research remains extremely underfunded in India, in comparison with research in science and technology, the report says.

The committee was constituted by the government in September 2010 to review the functioning of the Council (in the last five years) as well as the research institutes funded by the ICSSR for promoting social science research. It comprises Deepak Nayyar, Bakul Dholakia, Kirit S. Parikh — all academics — who co-opted Kishnendu Ghosh Dastidar as member secretary.

Funding for the ICSSR is quite meagre, when compared to funding received by comparable bodies of repute such as the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) and Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR). The report says that between 2005-06 and 2009-10, the total grant to the ICSSR was just about 2.3 per cent of the total grant to the CSIR and about 11 per cent of the total grant to the ICMR. “This clearly shows that compared to the research support to natural and medical sciences, the research support to social sciences is extremely low.”

The ICSSR was set up in 1969 as the apex body for social science research. It was envisaged to be a premier body for promoting social science research, funded by the government, with the research agenda decided primarily by social scientists themselves.

If we take all the institutes together, on an average, a faculty member takes about five years to write a book, one year to write a paper in a journal and more than a year and half to write a chapter in an edited volume, the report says, while commenting on the research output of the Council. Importantly, it says: “It seems that the disbursal of the ICSSR funds is far too centred in and around Delhi and northern India. In short, there appears to be strong regional bias.”

According to the report, between 2000-01 and 2009-10 Delhi’s share of all the doctoral fellowships awarded was 33.2 per cent and North India (other than Delhi) had a share of 27 per cent. Unlike the case of fellowships, there does not seem to be any strong regional bias in the distribution of research projects awarded by the ICSSR.

Pointing out that it seemed that appointments within the ICSSR system do not follow any transparent or systematic process, the committee further says that there appears to be no clear division of jurisdiction, duties and responsibilities of the ICSSR Chairman and member secretary. Even the exact role of the ICSSR Council is not defined.

Calling for a revamp in the appointments, the report suggests that the chairman must be a distinguished academic with leadership qualities, who should be chosen by a search committee. The designation of Member-Secretary should be changed to Director-General with the level and payscale that of a Vice-Chancellor of a Central university.

Source: The Hindu, August 4, 2011