IIM Calcutta, XLRI: How management schools are planning new ways to improve NIRF ranking in research

NEW DELHI: Take IIM Calcutta. The oldest of the Indian Institutes of Management (IIM) and a premier business school found itself pushed to the fourth place on the National Institutional Ranking Framework’s (NIRF) management rankings.

It was pipped at the post by Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi – a premier engineering college with a management department. IIM Calcutta was ahead in every parameter except one – “Research, Professional Practice and Collaborative Performance”. IIM-C had scored 48.09 out of 100 in that; IIT Delhi had 78.39. Given the importance of research in the rankings, that was enough for the tech school to pull ahead.

Research is where the business schools find themselves on the backfoot and the rankings prompted a rethink.

“The top research institutions in the country are STEM research institutions, and the management discipline is one among their departments,” explained Sebastian MP, chairperson, accreditation and rankings, IIM Kozhikode.

Management institutes have worked with central government, industry, and global institutes. But the NIRF relies on publication and citation data drawn from specific indices that don’t always register the practical, problem-oriented work the B-schools have done. There is a significant difference in the funding available and business schools have traditionally focussed on teaching and placements.

Sebastian George, SJ, director, XLRI Jamshedpur said: “Ten years ago, teaching was the major activity. But now research has become an equally important component for ranking. We have been known for teaching but now we are shifting gears towards research.”

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Management schools: Shifting focus

MP explained that while IIMs are business schools, their main focus is only on management, which includes fields like accounting, finance, information systems, organisational behaviour, economics, strategy, and marketing.

He added that in STEM fields, innovation often leads to the rapid creation of new subfields. Each of these new subfields opens up numerous research opportunities, resulting in exponential growth in research output. But the scope of management research is narrower.

“Management research tends to focus on decision-making, efficiency, human behaviour, leadership, and business models, which often have defined limits in comparison to the vastness of STEM fields. The evolution of research in business tends to build more incrementally on existing theories and practices. Also, management research generally attracts less funding. This difference in resource availability directly impacts the volume of research output in management institutions,” he said.

XLRI has only recently paid attention to research. “If you look at other things like student ratio, faculty, qualification – we are at the top. But when it comes to research, we have shifted into this area only in the last 10 years. It takes time for everyone including faculties to get used to this era,” said George. “However, research is also one parameter that is pulling the institute down.”

Rajesh Raut, associate professor at IIM Mumbai who also looks after ranking and research, said: “For ranking, NIRF does rank directly from certain websites where institutes have to directly upload tier citations. The NIRF committee fetches the data from each institute through the website.”

But IIM Mumbai – formerly NITIE – is also focussing on research. “If you look at our three to five years graph, we are doing better. Our citations are quite high and it gives a glimpse of the quality and quantity of research we are doing,” said Raut.

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Foreign collaborations, incentivising research

The top institutions are pumping more funds into research as a way of incentivising faculty and students.

XLRI recently revised its internship scheme to attract research scholars from more diverse backgrounds and increased the funds available.

“We have revised the monetary value of publishing a paper from Rs 4 lakh to Rs 13 lakh which will be dependent on the number of authors. Through this, we have made a new track system to incentivise and promote research. We have also told all faculties to hire research associates to help in doing research,” said George.

IIM Kozhikode has similar strategies in place as well as ones to encourage collaborations. “Through grants and allowances, we encourage research collaborations and networking through conference funding. We also encourage visits of eminent research scholars through Visiting Research Fellow and Visiting Research Professor programmes,” said MB.

IIM Mumbai is also eyeing foreign collaborations. “We have done collaborations with the industry in India and globally because research without collaboration isn’t valuable. We have a collaboration with MIT…. This impacts NIRF ranking as foreign collaborations receive better ranking because the visibility is quite high,” said Raut.

IIM Mumbai is also a nodal institute for PM GatiShakti – a national project on “multimodal connectivity”. “Amongst many research projects, PM GatiShakti is one of the important ones as we are a nodal institute for this scheme. We are one of the top institutes in supply chain research in India,” said Raut.

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XLRI, IIM Mumbai: Further plans

XLRI is focusing on further expanding its research environment, culture, and output and set targets for the next five years.

“A system of financial rewards for publication in prestigious journals has been established. The number of publications in A, A* category publications have gone up significantly – about 10 times over the last 10-12 years. This is a result of systemisation with rewards. The institute is pushing forward its publications in all the Financial Times 50 journals, with an aim of 10-15 publications in the next five years,” stated George.

On the ranking front, institutions are already planning for future reforms in NIRF. The framework is set to include a parameter on sustainability and IIM Mumbai is already working toward it.

“We have been already working in this area for a long time including agriculture, food supply chain, digital transformation, blockchain in agriculture and healthcare, which will give us a better ranking, especially in research, in the next few years,” said Raut.

However, for XLRI, as a private, standalone institute, the absence of a full-fledged PhD programme is a hindrance.

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“One of the drawbacks is that we give Fellow programmes in management and not PhD, whereas IIM serves that advantage along with MBA. However, we have opted for a deemed university status for the accreditation to give MBA and PhD degrees to students at our institute,” said George.