In a first, an academic from Rajasthan has bagged a prestigious research grant of the Australian government for her project on “Building economic resilience of women during pandemics”, which will develop a novel toolkit to facilitate designing and development of programmes for women empowerment.
The Australian Alumni Grant Scheme (AAGS) has awarded the grant worth 10,000 Australian dollars to Kirti Mishra, an assistant professor at the Indian Institute of Management (IIM)-Udaipur, who has specialised in organisational behaviour and human resource management. Dr. Mishra completed her doctorate from Monash University, Melbourne, in 2016.
Strategic partnership
Dr. Mishra is also the first member of the IIM faculty to receive the grant, which is awarded annually to encourage innovations in the key sectors identified in the comprehensive strategic partnership between Australia and India. The partnership, signed in 2020, seeks to enhance, inter alia, science, technology and research collaboration.
Dr. Mishra told The Hindu on Tuesday that her project would empirically measure women’s resilience during the pandemic through a survey of 1,600 women associated with a programme of an advocacy group, World Vision. “The toolkit created after the study will be made available to policy makers in the government and voluntary sector in India and abroad,” she said.
The IIM-Udaipur faculty member, who completed her Masters in Business from University of Queensland, Brisbane, before taking up doctorate, said the project was a step towards engaging in research which had a societal impact. It will explore social and economic factors as well as the infrastructure and policies that might improve outcomes for women and their families.
E-learning module
Along with IIM-Udaipur, the partners in the project will be the World Vision India, Monash University, Melbourne, and Flinders University, Aidelaide. In addition to the publication of the research findings in a world renowned journal, the project will also develop an e-learning module to promote its recommendations.
Australia’s Foreign Affairs Minister Marise Payne and High Commissioner to India Barry O’Farrell announced the release of AAGS grants at a virtual event last week. Other alumni-led projects selected for the grants included those on environmental education, water-sensitive cities, digital infrastructure and disaster risk reduction.
