Abstract: India has witnessed a rapid growth in Public Policy research, both on the academic front in the form of Master’s and PhD programs and the non-academic front represented by think tanks offering short-term courses on public policy. Private policy research entities are mostly output-oriented, constantly producing policy analysis documents and case studies while catering to their clientele and larger policy issues faced by the country. Academic research needs to focus on the process to reach the academic output, where conceptual, methodological, and analytical rigour are paramount. In this talk, Dr Khaire will discuss some of the key themes of ongoing research that examines the challenges early-career researchers (ECRs) face in the academic field. The analysis of interviews with ECRs in the public policy discipline revealed three formidable challenges they faced while undertaking their research: theoretical ambiguity, uncertainty around the fieldwork, and context obscurity. These three themes, peculiar to the Indian context, had a transformative impact on the research process. In this interactive session, he will engage with the students at ADCPS through discussions over these themes while relating to the challenges they face during research, to explore possible pathways to move forward in public policy research.
Speaker Bio-sketch: Dr Manav Khaire is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Palakkad, Kerala, India, where he teaches courses on public policy, research methodology, and AI governance & policy. His research interests fall at the intersection of infrastructure studies, housing, urbanisation, and the financialisation of social policy in the Global South. His current research focuses on the financialisation of housing policies and their interplay with the policy narratives of affordable housing. He is currently serving as an Assistant Editor for the South Asia Research journal.