The ICFAI Foundation for Higher Education (IFHE), a deemed university, will be diversifying its management research programmes into emerging areas such as analytics and human resource related aspects.
“We have about 100 PhD scholars, including 25 who have been awarded their doctorates. We want to double this in a phased manner over the next five years,” J Mahender Reddy, Vice-Chancellor of IFHE, also known as Icfai University, told BusinessLine during an interaction here.
Efforts are also on to diversify the research areas into industry relevant issues in analytics, human resource, finance, marketing and operations, among others.
Referring to the need for undertaking research/PhD programmes in management, Reddy said there was acute shortage of PhDs in management to take up teaching in the 5,000-odd business schools. “This is not only impacting the quality of research in expanding frontiers of scholarship in management, but also adversely impacting quality of teaching,” he said.
Those who have completed PhD from Icfai are now working as faculties in leading business schools including Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs), he added.
Incentives To promote research, the university is providing financial incentives of up to ₹1 lakh for faculty who publish their research papers in international and national peer reviews journals. “We also encourage our faculty and scholars to participate in global business conferences to get exposure and theoretical perspectives.
For the PhD programme, Icfai offers a stipend of about ₹25,000 as a fellowship and also inducts scholars as faculty after successful completion of their programme. “This is a win-win situation of students as well as the university, as we are unable to hire quality faculty from outside,” Reddy said. Recognised a Deemed University under Section 3 of the UGC Act, 1956, since 2008, the institute has constituent schools such as Icfai Business School (IBS) and also offers courses in science and technology besides law.