Committee to Review functioning of Indian Council of Social Science Research submitted Report

The committee constituted by the Union government in September 2010 to review the functioning of the Indian Council of Social Science Research (ICSSR) as well as the research institutes funded by the ICSSR for promoting social science research submitted its report in August 2011. The committee comprised Deepak Nayyar, Bakul Dholakia, Kirit S. Parikh, all academics — who co-opted Kishnendu Ghosh Dastidar as member secretary.
According to the committee, funding was a major issue that had adversely affected the performance of this institution. It recommended 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.

The committee's report suggests that the ICSSR should create a corpus of about Rs. 1000 crore as a complement to funds from other sources for funding research and attracting researchers. Major changes in the governance pattern were also recommended.

The committee observed after analysis of government funding patterns that social science research remained extremely underfunded in India.

Funding for the ICSSR was found to be 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). According to the report 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 between 2005-06 and 2009-10.

The disbursal of the ICSSR funds was concentrated in and around Delhi and northern India. The report thus pointed out a possible 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. However 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.

The report also pointing out that appointment within the ICSSR system did not follow any transparent or systematic process. The committee further stated that there were no clear division of jurisdiction, duties and responsibilities of the ICSSR Chairman and member secretary. Even the exact role of the ICSSR Council could was not defined.

The committee called for a revamp in the appointments. The report suggested that the chairman of the council 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.

About ICSSR

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.