National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER)

on of policy makers. NCAER is India’s oldest and largest economic think-tank. It is also one of a handful of think-tanks in the world that combine rigorous analysis and policy outreach with deep data collection capabilities, particularly for large scale household surveys. This is a unique combination of capacities that has allowed NCAER to live up to the “applied economic research” in its name. For more than 55 years, NCAER has deployed both cutting-edge research methodologies and uniquely focused and timely data in addressing the policy design and implementation problems that it tackles. As India undergoes perhaps the world’s largest economic and social transformations in a democracy, there is no part of its society that is left untouched. Understanding this transformation in its multiple dimensions, and gathering and analysing evidence to evaluate the efficacy of government policies and to examine the private sector’s role in this transformation are key objectives that NCAER continues to serve. NCAER has a long legacy and a large mandate that its founding fathers in the public and private sectors gave it. NCAER over the years has enjoyed increasing demand for its work as it has adapted to changing conditions. Choosing high-quality research projects dealing with highly relevant problems of policy, programme design, or implementation, and then ensuring that it delivers the projects on time, budget and quality to the sponsor’s satisfaction is part of NCAER’s DNA. NCAER also enjoys considerable convening power with the government and the private sector, as exemplified by its many partnerships within and outside India. The public give and take over research and policy findings and the wider sharing of its scholarly work is the life and blood of a policy research institute. It is also one of the most enjoyable aspects of life in a think-tank. Certainly, the events calendar of NCAER seminars, lectures, and conferences remained very full in 2011–12. Many of these discussions centred round work done by NCAER, but we also continued to provide a forum for disseminating research done by others. Competition for public and private research projects, for high-quality talent, and for resources is increasing as the ground shifts with the entry of newer players. NCAER has begun making investments in its human, social, and physical capital, and in strengthening its financial foundations, to adapt to this changing environment. Starting in 2011–12, we have been privileged to have a number of prominent economists as NCAER Nonresident Senior Fellows, including Kaushik Basu (Cornell), Jagdish Bhagwati (Columbia), Anil Deolalikar (University of California, Riverside), Stefan Dercon (Oxford), Shantayanan Devarajan (World Bank), Jeffrey Hammer (Princeton), Ravi Kanbur (Cornell), Arvind Panagariya (Columbia), and Raghuram Rajan (Chicago).We are also pleased to have Karthik Muralidharan (University of California, San Diego), and Dean Spears and Diane Coffey (Princeton) as Nonresident Fellows. NCAER is implementing a SAP based Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system for enhancing financial controls, for integrating financial and HR transactions, and for improving management reporting systems. In addition to this, global technology leader Infosys Ltd has agreed to help NCAER develop a multi-year IT strategy aligned with its renewal strategy that will strongly leverage NCAER’s research and communication efforts. We have also begun work on a new HR strategy to ensure that its HR policies and operations are closely aligned with the changes at NCAER. NCAER’s campus built in the late 1950s in Central New Delhi is positioned in one of the most desirable locations in the nation’s capital. The seat of India’s highest executive and legislative authority, its supreme judiciary, its largest national daily newspapers, the India Gate complex, and New Delhi’s prime cultural centre and the commercial heart are all within a four kilometre radius of NCAER. We have had plans underway for a number of years to reconstruct our campus. A design competition was run in 2009 and a winning entry chosen. Over fifty years ago, the founders of NCAER established a premier research institution committed to the cause of national development. The architecture of the new NCAER campus proposes to mirror this role—in terms of functionality, technology, and aesthetic clarity. A new, state-of-the-art office tower will flank a central plaza, establishing a civic presence on the New Delhi skyline. An independent conference centre will connect to the main entry, enabling multiple uses as a venue for hosting NCAER and other public events. The legacy of the existing NCAER building will be preserved even as its façade and interiors are reinvented. It will serve as NCAER’s anchor for outreach activities, accommodating a new library, a media centre, conference spaces, a survey centre, a publications unit, a cafeteria, and easily reconfigured open-space offices.