IRIS 2026: 54 scholars win Faculty Research Awards for contributions across 27 domains

NEW DELHI: Fifty-four researchers working across 27 domains have been recognised for their contributions to their disciplines at the third edition of Careers360’s Faculty Research Awards. The Outstanding Faculty Awards will go to an equal number of scholars from public and private institutions in 26 domains; in one, both awardees are from public institutions.

The researchers are affiliated with institutions across disciplines, ranging from agricultural and biological sciences, arts and humanities, and computer science to medicine, engineering, physics, psychology and veterinary sciences.

The awards carry a citation and a cash prize of Rs 50,000 each and are being presented by professor GD Yadav. He was the founding vice-chancellor of Institute of Chemical Technology (ICT) Mumbai and is still associated with it as Emeritus Professor of Eminence.

Prof Yadav is President of the Indian Chemical Society, a Vice-President of the Indian National Science Academy, and Fellow of 10 Indian and foreign science academies. He is only the second Indian to become a fellow of the US National Academy of Inventors and the only Indian fellow in the Canadian Academy of Engineering.

The list includes researchers from institutions such as the Indian Agricultural Research Institute, Amity University, University of Hyderabad, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Jamia Millia Islamia, NITTE Deemed-to-be University, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kharagpur and Bombay, FORE School of Management, Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science, Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, IIIT Hyderabad, Thapar Institute of Engineering and Technology, and IIM Mumbai, among others.

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India’s Top Faculty Researchers

A comprehensive and objective approach was adopted for the selection of awardees and the top 1,000 researchers in India’s academic institutions.

For the third edition of the Faculty Research Awards, Careers360 employed the same methodology used in the previous editions to identify the most productive academic authors within their respective domains.

To begin with, only authors working within academic institutions and with at least 10 publications to their names over the decade between 2015 and 2025 were considered. The research area is interdisciplinary, so we have selected the major research contribution of the author within the specific time frame.

Academic authors were identified through highly regarded databases, Stanford University’s list of top 2% scientists, as well as popular websites such as Research.com. Based on their scholarly output or publication counts within the timeframe, number of citations, and h-index, the 54 awardees and the group of top 1,000 researchers across 27 broad domains were identified.

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Careers360 Faculty Research Awards 2026: List of winners

Evaluation criteria

The evaluation criteria and process employed for the first edition of the awards have been retained. They were developed in consultation with senior academics and with the support of doctoral fellows.

They are based on the publication records indexed in a reputable database which divides subjects into 27 broad domains and 334 subjects. Data was gathered over the last week of August, 2026.

The three main factors are publication counts in journals, citation counts and h-index. Each of these was assigned a specific weight in the evaluation process. Scholarly output carries a weight of 33.5%; citations, 31.6%; and the h-index, 34.9%. By incorporating these multiple factors and assigning appropriate weights to each, Careers360 ensures a comprehensive and fair evaluation process. The composite score allows for a holistic assessment of researchers’ contributions, considering their publication output, impact within the academic community through citations, and their overall research influence as measured by the h-index.

We identified 500 researchers in each domain, bringing the total number across all 27 domains to 13,500. Each scholar from the pool of more than 500 eligible researchers was assigned a cumulative overall score. Based on these scores, the top 1,000 scholars and the award winners were identified.

Like in the last edition, Careers360 has again chosen to recognise research scholars from public and private institutions separately for the Outstanding Faculty Award across each of the 27 domains. Our intention was to encourage greater volumes of high-quality research in the growing number of private institutions across the country.