In research, IIM-Udaipur leads the pack; IIM-L slips

Lucknow: Hard to believe but the relatively newer Indian Institute of Management, IIM-Udaipur is doing best research, shows the India Rankings 2016. Established in 2010, IIM-U which bagged the overall 5th position scored 9.04 marks out of 10 in collaborative publications, surpassing the old IIMs. In fact, IIM-U has put up best performance among top 10 management institutions ranked by Union ministry of human resource development.
While IIM-Bangalore secured 5.61, IIM-Ahmedabad scored only 4.75 in research. IIM-Calcutta did a good job by securing 6.60. Severely lacking on research, IIM-Lucknow scored 4.56 marks, lowest among the top five management institutes, and second lowest among IIMs (in top 10) only after IIM-Indore which has scored 4.09.
Data on research publications and citations was taken directly from resources published by Elsevier (Scopus), Thomson Reuters (Web of Science) and the Indian Citation Index. These three databases were searched to determine quantitative productivity of institutions for ranking in terms of research articles published from 2012- 2014.
Research in most management institutions has suffered despite severe dip in the consulting. In six, the amount earned through consultancy has been slashed to almost half. IIM-L in 2014 had consulting projects amounting Rs 223.79 lakh as against Rs 112.94 in 2015. The biggest setback came to IIM-Indore which received consulting projects only for Rs 23.20 lakh in 2015 in comparison to 167.55 lakh.
In IIM-L, former director Devi Singh had in 2014 proposed to link consultancy with research. The proposal stated that fees earned by professors through consultancy and other professional activities will be slashed proportionately with fall in their research work over a three-year period.