Projects

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Awards & Grants:

Professor (Dr.) Mousumi Mukherjee received a major research grant (2022-2023) of Rs. 14 Lakhs from the Indian Council of Social Science Research (ICSSR) with letter dated th 10 March 2023 and Rs. 9,66,000/- from JGU Faculty Research Grant Committee with letter dated 17th Jan 2024 to conduct empirical research on the topic: “Motivations and Experiences of International Students: An Evidence-Based Approach to Internationalisation of Indian Higher Education”. The project went through a very competitive and rigorous selection process by ICSSR experts. As the Project Director, she will work on this collaborative research project with project partners, Dr. Venesser Fernandes (Monash University) and Dr. Shekhar Tokas (Ambedkar University)

(Dr.) Reshma Vats received an internal JGU research grant to work on a project titled “A Study to Assess the Impact of Welfare Scheme “Creation Of Employment Generation Opportunities by Setting up Employment Oriented Institutes/Training Programmes” in SC Dominated Districts of Haryana”. The research grant approved for the medium-term (18-months) project is Rs. 5,10,000.

IIHED Doctoral Research Fellow, Ms. Tenzin Dolma working under the supervision of Prof. (Dr.) Mousumi Mukherjee, received the prestigious non-residential Fellowship of Rs. 3 Lakhs from the Foundation for Universal Responsibility of His Holiness the Dalai Lama with a th letter sated 13 March 2023 to write a monograph on Dalai Lama’s Philosophy of Education titled:- “The Becoming: The XIV Dalai Lama on Education”

Deputy Director of IIHED, Prof. (Dr.) Mousumi Mukherjee receive a Community Excellence Award as Early-career alumni researcher from the University of Melbourne on the 8th year of her career post-PhD. She was also appointed an Honoray Senior Fellow of the Faculty of Education, University of Melbourne. Dr. Mukherjee has been teaching and researching in the higher education sector in India, US and Australia over the past 24 years.

Mousumi Mukherjee received the 2021 Best Published Article Award from the Comparative and International Education Society (CIES) South Asia (SIG) for the article: “Southern Theory and Postcolonial Comparative Education” published in the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Education, Oxford University Press during the 65th Annual Meeting of CIES on the theme, “Social Responsibility within Changing Contexts” held virtually from April 25- May 2, 2021.

Professor Kalyani Unkule, Fellow, IIHEd, received the Commonwealth Peace and Reconciliation Challenge Grant 2021 awarded by the Association of Commonwealth Universities. Professor Unkule’s project aims to transform the study abroad officer into an agent of peace and reconciliation, building on her monograph “Internationalising the University: A Spiritual Approach” published in 2019.

Grant Application For Future Project

Dr. Mousumi Mukherjee submitted a large grant application to the Spencer Foundation to work on a collaborative research project with Prof. Sahan Rajan (JGBS) and Prof. Riyad Shahjahan (Michigan State University, USA) studying “Temporality and Faculty Life in Urban India”

Other Ongoing Projects

(Dr.) Mousumi Mukherjee and Prof. Ram B. Ramachandran have completed data collection for project on “Student and Faculty perceptions of ChatGPT and AI in Higher Education”. Data analysis is ongoing. This is an empirical study to investigate the undeniable impact that Artificial Intelligence and more specifically large language models like ChatGPT will do to transform learning, teaching pedagogy and academic administration.

This study’s objectives are:

Understanding the adaptive and iterative learning process for students

Exploring the impact of changes to ChatGPT assisted teaching

Investigating potential changes to assessment and evaluation methods This survey will focus on the perceptions and current usage of ChatGPT By students and faculty. Later studies will be further enhanced to address the broader objectives stated above.

(Dr.) Mousumi Mukherjee along with Prof. (Dr.) Indrani Bhattacharjee have launched a call for paper for Scopus listed Taylor & Francis Journal- Educational Philosophy and Theory special issue on: – “Shiksha Darshana”: Indian perspectives on Educational Philosophies and Theory to be guest edited by both of them. https://think.taylorandfrancis.com/special_issues/shiksha-darshana-indian-perspectiveseducational-philosophies-theory/?

Deputy Director, Dr. Mousumi Mukherjee has initiated a collaborative research project with Prof. Maresi Nerad, Founding Director, Center for Innovation and Research in Graduate Education (CIRGE), University of Washington, Seattle for a project focused on understanding the state of doctoral education in India, along with IIHED Senior fellow, Prof. K.K. Pandey and Prof. T.A. Abhinandan of the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) Bangalore. Indian Institutie of Management Ahmedabad (IIM-A), Banaras Hindu University (BHU), and Manipal Academy of Higher Education (MAHE), are also partnering for this project.

(Dr.) Deepak Maun has initiated a project to further understand the complexities and challenges of doctoral education within Indian higher education context. Funding (internal/external grants) will be sought upon completion of the systematic literature review.

“Students’ Experiences with Distance Learning under COVID-19” (Completed) in collaboration with SERU Consortium, University of California, Berkley Project Leads: Prof. (Dr.) Mousumi Mukherjee, Prof. (Dr.) Tatiana Belousova and Prof. (Dr.) Deepak Maun This research study aimed to understand student experiences of distance learning during COVID-19 global pandemic. Data for this study is being collected from students in the form of auto-ethnographic self-reections and an online survey tool developed by the Student Experiences in Research University (SERU) consortium at the Centre for Studies in Higher Education, University of California, Berkley 3.

“International Indian students ‘stranded’ during the COVID-19 pandemic”- (Completed) This collaborative research project with Dr. Surjeet Dhanji, the University of Melbourne aimed to investigate how Australian education and migration policies affect the international Indian students stranded in India during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Strengths-based school leadership and management practices

External Collaboration: Monash University, Australia
Project Leads: Prof. (Dr.) Mousumi Mukherjee, Prof. (Dr.) Deepak Maun, Prof. (Dr.) Krishan Kumar Pandey

This project in collaboration with colleagues at Monash University is seeking to understand strengths-based leadership and management practices of school leaders in the context of fast globalizing times and increasing pressure from various stakeholders of the schooling systems in India and Australia. The research outcome of this comparative study of strengths-based school leadership practices in two very different and diverse contexts will inform school leadership training in higher education in the future.

Students’ Experiences with Distance Learning under COVID-19

External Collaboration- SERU Consortium, University of California, BerkleyProject Leads: Prof. (Dr.) Mousumi Mukherjee, Prof. (Dr.) Tatiana Belousova, Prof. (Dr.) Deepak Maun

This research study aims to understand student experiences of distance learning during COVID-19 global pandemic. Data for this study is being collected from students in the form of auto-ethnographic self-reflections and an online survey tool developed by the Student Experiences in Research University (SERU) consortium at the Centre for Studies in Higher Education, University of California, Berkley

Other Ways of Knowing and Doing: Globalizing Social Science Knowledge in Higher Education
Oceania Comparative and International Education Society Networking Grant 2017
Project Leads: Prof. (Dr.) Mousumi Mukherjee and Ms. Nandita Koshal

This International Research Symposium aimed to share knowledge on some of the recent theoretical and methodological trends in the field of comparative and international education. Drawing on the issues raised in the recent Special Issue of the journal, Comparative Education Review “Contesting Coloniality: Rethinking Knowledge Production and Circulation in Comparative and International Education” (Takayama, Sriprakash & Connell, 2017); this international research symposium sought to provide a forum for sharing theoretical and methodological knowledge about “Other ways of Knowing and Doing” (Raina, 2016). It sought to establish an academic alliance of OCIES scholars with educators, institutional leaders, and researchers investigating educational issues incorporating local wisdom and theories within the South Asian context and other marginalized/postcolonial contexts around the world. The two-day long international research symposium with a pre-symposium journal publication workshop was organized by the ‘Centre for Comparative and Global Education’ and International Institute for Higher Education Research and Capacity Building at O.P. Jindal Global (Institution of Eminence Deemed To Be University) in collaboration with Oceania Comparative and International Education Society (OCIES), Indian Ocean Comparative Education Society (IOCES), World Council of Comparative Education Societies (WCCES) and UNESCO-Chairs in Community-based Research and Social Responsibility in Higher Education.

Selected papers presented at the research symposium are being compiled as the Special Issue 19 (1), 2020 of the “International Education Journal: Comparative Perspectives” published by the University of Sydney Open-journal system. It is an internationally peer-reviewed flagship journal of the Oceania Comparative and International Education Society (formerly the Australia-New Zealand Comparative Education Society)

Bridging Internationalisation and Social Responsibility in Higher Education

JGU Research Project Grant ID: JGU/RGP/2018/006
Project Lead: Prof. (Dr.) Mousumi Mukherjee

Internationalisation and social responsibility of higher education are often seen as cross-roads with each other in the existing empirical research literature on higher education. By exploring a historic connection between Tagore’s Viswa Bharati and University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, this project sought to understand how Tagore and his admirers at the UIUC campus Tagore circle envisioned internationalisation and local community engagement. This project sought to explore what historic and sociological forces shaped their conceptualisation of the aims and objectives of the international university responding to the local community needs.

Publications:

1) Mukherjee, M. (2020). Tagore’s “rooted-cosmopolitanism” and international mindedness against institutional sustainability. In Special Issue on Asian Cosmopolitanisms: Living and Learning Across Differences. Asia Pacific Journal of Education. 40 (1), 49-60.

2) Book chapter titled- “Creative Resistance”: Establishing a World-minded Indian University in colonial British India” submitted for an edited book on “Ubuntu and Comparative Education and International Education for Peace” to be published by Brill/Sense in 2020

3) Ongoing Book Project: Mukherjee, M & Bera, A. “Tagore @Illinois: Researching Global Connections in Education”

Critical Thinking and Education: Study of a Few ‘Critical Spaces’ in India

External Collaboration: Pranab Mukherjee Foundation
Project Leads: Prof. (Dr.) Deepak Maun, Prof. Anamika Srivastava and Ms. Nandita Koshal

The project builds on the premise that critical thinking is an important goal of formal education, but such thinking and its manifestations are highly context-specific. The aim is to study the notions of critical thinking that prevail among students in the universities (higher education) and alternative spaces for education (among school-aged children) within the Indian context. The objective is to see, how do these notions manifest in the lives of the students and other adults in these spaces. The project also seeks to identify the factors that shape the prevailing notions of critical thinking within the context of the spaces being studied and why.

Comparative and Global Perspectives on International Student Experiences: The case of Tibetan Students in India

JGU Research Grant ID: JGU/RGP/2019/006
Project Lead: Prof. (Dr.) Mousumi Mukherjee

Globally, there are about 5 million students studying in higher education outside their home country. Out of these students, roughly 48,000 foreign students are studying in India. They represent less than 1 per cent of the global total. The Government of India recently launched the Study in India initiative to increase foreign student enrolment to over two lakhs by 2023. Though the logic of market-economics is being used these days in most policy discourse (including that of education), teaching and learning is integrally a social process. So, it is important to investigate the experiences of existing groups of international students in India, as the body of international students is also very diverse. However, little is also known about the experiences of these foreign students in Indian universities. By doing a case study of the experiences of the Tibetan students in India (who have been residing in India as “foreigners” in exile and studying in Indian institutions) we can get a glimpse of the experiences of the one of the most vulnerable refugee/exiled community of students in India, who are treated as international students in most college campuses. The findings from this study can help inform policies for Tibetan students in India and also further expand this study to include other groups of international students in India, informing policies for international students at large.