54 Researchers Honoured At India Research And Impact Summit 2026

Fifty-four researchers from public and private higher education institutions across India were recognised at the third edition of Careers360’s Faculty Research Awards, held in New Delhi on October 1 as part of the first India Research & Impact Summit (IRIS) 2026.

The awards recognised researchers across 27 academic domains, placing individual scholars at the centre of discussions around research and knowledge creation in Indian higher education.

For 26 of the 27 domains, one researcher each from a public and private institution was selected. In one domain, both awardees were from public institutions. The winners were selected based on their publications, citations and H-index as recorded in established academic research indices.

The awardees represented institutions including the IITs, IIMs, AIIMS, University of Hyderabad, ICAR, TISS Mumbai, Symbiosis International, SRM Institute of Science and Technology, Manipal Academy of Higher Education, Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham and UPES Dehradun.

Focus On Research Impact

Prof. Abhay Karandikar, member of NITI Aayog, former Secretary of the Department of Science and Technology (DST) and former director of IIT Kanpur, delivered the keynote address at the summit.

Karandikar highlighted the gap between academic research and its translation into technologies and commercial applications. He also pointed to the concentration of research in a limited number of universities and weak industry-academia links.

“India is severely lacking in our academia, universities and also in the industry ecosystem in terms of taking the basic research and the research which has been published into translatable technologies, commercialisation and so on,” Karandikar said.

He said stronger connections between academia and industry could help researchers address challenges facing India as well as global problems.

The summit also featured six panel discussions covering challenges facing research, industry-academia collaboration, measuring research impact in policy, business and society, and whether universities reward research impact or research output.

Other discussions focused on the research environment for PhD students and the role of research in institutional rankings.

Researchers At The Centre

Sribharat Mathukumilli, Member of Parliament (Lok Sabha) and President of GITAM Deemed-to-be University, delivered the Impact Keynote.

“We need to become an exceptional knowledge-based institution, advancing on a culture of honesty and compassion,” Mathukumilli said, adding that India's capacity for academic research remains low.

Maheshwer Peri, Founder and Chairman of Careers360, said the awards were created to highlight individual researchers who often remain less visible while institutions receive recognition through rankings, accreditation and reputation.

He said a university's contribution should not be measured only by how well it teaches existing knowledge, but also by its role in creating new knowledge.

The Faculty Research Awards sought to put researchers “at the centre of the conversation” by recognising scholars from both public and private institutions across 27 disciplines.