Research Client
The India Research Corps is a platform for government agencies, civil society organisations, and nonprofits looking to solve a problem to amplify their social-impact initiatives.
Organisations with questions requiring rigorous research can approach the India Research Corps to undertake the work on their behalf.
The India Research Corps is open to questions in the areas of water, environment, land, and livelihoods. Within these areas, the questions could be scientific or social (relating to the behaviour of people).
For us to select a question, the subject of the study must be Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Timebound.
Further, the research question needs to have a clear and specific application. The client should have a clearly defined “So What?” A good question is one where the answer will result in action. That action can be in the form of shaping policy, local practices, programme design, etc. Several questions might help sate curiosity, or their answers would be nice to know. Under this programme, we do not want to pursue such questions because they might not immediately translate into action.
Our goal with any question at the India Research Corps is to turn it around within a 1-year time frame. This is the amount of time it takes to find a researcher who has the relevant skills to pursue a topic. The researcher then needs time to study precedents; prepare the methodology; undertake the research; and analyse, synthesise, and report the findings.
Who can send in their questions?
Organisations working in urban or rural areas can pose their questions to the India Research Corps.
The organisations submitting questions to the India Research Corps are typically government agencies or civil society organisations. We are open to questions from private organisations if there is a clear “so what?”.
Client Workflow
Workflow Description
Source Question – The questions would have to be sourced from clients and qualified to ensure that they can be undertaken by the scholar and delivered in a timely manner with the resources provided. We will run the question through our internal checks.
So What? – We will work with the client organisation to establish clear next steps once the outcome of the research is delivered. This is to ensure that there is clarity of purpose in posing the question.
Field Research – The scholar conducts the field research, adhering to the methodology agreed upon and documented in the inception report. The scholar then analyses the data to answer the question posed by the client.
Capstone Presentation – The students present the results back to the client to close the programme.