Relevance of academic resarch
Research should be done. Be it IIMs, IITs or any institution. IIMs have always advocated high quality research. If you don’t have high quality research, you will not be known worldwide. Your physical presence is proved when your research papers are coming out in world class journals. And to promote research we are giving huge incentives to our faculty members. It has been passed from the board. A-class, B-class, C-class - we have done a general classification. Publishing in top-class journals takes time. I think they should be rewarded for that.

Need for local research
We now teach based on papers and cases from Harvard Business School. Why can’t we have a reservoir of our own Indian papers? Who will write these papers? Only our researchers can do this. Management is not only concerned with business aspect of industries. It has crossed all boundaries and relates to all walks of life; whether you talk about an MBA running an NGO or government, everywhere high-quality professionals are required.

Faculty with doctorates
PhD will be necessary for a B-School faculty. It always puts you in a particular framework and that’s why it is said that PhD is required. India must produce top quality papers which are respected worldwide and gets published in top-class journals.

Dr. B.S. Sahay Founder Director IIM-Raipur

PhD at IIM Raipur
We are starting doctorate programmes from next year because we have seen that there is an acute shortage of faculty members in the country. This country needs research, quality research. If we are able to focus on two things - high quality academics and high quality research and research which can be used by the society and by the nation. If we are able to produce good teachers, it will be a great service to the nation. Considering this, we are going to start a doctoral programme from the next year. We would be admitting through five exams - CAT, GMAT, GRE, GATE and UGC-JRF - and we are hoping to get good candidates.

Faculty with industry experience
For teaching, we need a different type of aptitude. Unless otherwise you have a teaching aptitude, you may not succeed. I have been seeing that the people coming from industry, some of them are really good. But some others can an take one class or two classes, beyond that they cannot engage the class. One needs an academic aptitude. If that thing is there, if a faculty member has got industrial experience, it will help enormously, particularly in a business school. All these people who are in industry, who are having research interest must pursue their passion and get themselves registered for a PhD. There are a lot of avenues for doing PhD now.

On New IIMS
I would not like to comment about any other IIM.  But, one thing I must tell you is that the new IIMs are experimenting with new models, new niche. At all the six new IIMs, there’s a common admission process to select students. By common it means, a common GD and PI. That means they need not attempt different interviews. If you think from the student’s point of view and nation’s point of view, this is a huge saving to the nation as all resources are the same.