About the project 

India has a considerably large research community of ministries, scientific  and industrial research organisations; universities, research councils, and autonomous institutions directly dealing with research/funding. The country also boasts of ~0.34 million FTE researchers. The quantum of research undertaken/funded by these institutions are also quite large. Research assessment criteria vary with the type of institutions, research, and the goal of assessment. 

However, like many other countries, research assessment in Indian institutions and funding agencies is currently overly dependent on matrices such as Journal Impact Factor (JIF), h-index, etc. Though started well intended, matrices proliferated to be an abused instrument. Keeping this in view, the proposed project aims to initiate a broader discussion on the framework used by these institutions, their institutional capacities, and strengths and gaps in the existing practices. 

For this purpose, we plan to organise a series of workshops with the major stakeholders of the Indian research ecosystem to understand and deliberate on the strengths and weaknesses of current practices. 

Expected outcome

The workshop outcome will help us better understand the existing practices, how to look beyond the quantitative journal indicator-based metrics, and suggest pathways to make them more effective and inclusive wherever necessary. The project outcome will help the institutions build robust, flexible research assessment frameworks.

For more information, please see the project website and contact Dr. Momita Koley or Dr. Suchiradipta Bhattacharjee