Faculty attitudes and perceptions towards improving quality of research and innovation in Higher Education institutions in India

Excellence in research and innovation are stated national objectives under the New Education Policy (NEP) of India. International institutional ranking frameworks such as QS and THE assign significant weightage to research and development. Similar benchmarks are adopted by the National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) and accreditation agencies such as NAAC, NBA etc. This has placed the onus of producing numeric research outcomes on all institutions alike. While this has succeeded in sprucing up the number of publications or patents filed in the short term, there is a need to examine whether this has led to broad basing of the research and innovation culture across the ecosystem. This paper therefore examines the state of the research and innovation ecosystem in private and autonomous STEM institutions in India by determining the attitude and perception of faculty members towards research and innovation. We find that faculty members are largely ill-equipped and ill-supported to produce quality research and innovation outcomes while the pressure to produce research is causing short-cuts to be adopted in the broader ecosystem. Finally, qualitative analysis uncovers insights leading to suggested corrective interventions needed to establish a culture of research and innovation in HEIs which may empower and enable the faculty members.