Stanford Professor: Indian Institute of Management Bangalore tops in business research

Bangalore: The Indian Institute of Management Bangalore has been ranked No. 1 in Business and Management research, in a Stanford University study of Indian universities, colleges and institutes.

The study, which used data from Thomson’s ISI Web of Knowledge, was conducted by Prof. Shariq Hasan of Stanford University, Graduate School of Business.

The rankings don't indicate the quantity of research papers produced by an institute, but the impact they have made. The rankings of Indian universities and institutes have been based on productivity in social science research.

“The rankings were created for my own use, I wanted to find out which Indian universities were producing the most (and, if possible, the most interesting) social science research,” wrote Professor Hassan, in his paper. "The rankings are my attempt at making sense of the social science ecosystem in India and not an attempt at producing a definitive and thorough ranking."

Even so, it is an honour for the city-based management school. "The survey certainly reflects IIMB's high priority on research," said Prof. Devnath Tirupathi, Director-in-Charge, IIMB.

“The survey presents a comprehensive picture of where social science researchers in India are publishing. IIMB's lead over others, within the Business and Management Research category, is an interesting quantification of the research being carried out in a wide number of areas within the institute," said Arnab Mukherjee, an assistant professor at IIMB.

“There is no doubt that these rankings are limited in important ways,” admits Prof. Hassan. Although this does reduce  the value of the rankings, although it makes comparing universities more straightforward and systematic.