Origins and Objectives

The Indian Association of Social Science Institutions (IASSI) is a federal formation of universities and academic bodies involved in teaching and research in the social sciences. The main objective of the association is primarily to engage member organizations in meaningful dialogues and promote knowledge exchange on relevant teaching programs and social issues.

IASSI functions as a national platform to facilitate discussions on themes like education, research, training, and other priorities in social science. The main objective of IASSI is to assist, facilitate, and promote interdisciplinary research and training on different aspects of economic and social development.

The Association was registered as a Society under the Indian Societies Registration Act (1860) in 1979.

IASSI receives financial support from the Ministry of Human Resource Development via the Indian Council for Social Science Research (ICSSR) for carrying out its society-related activities.

The key focus areas of the Association are:

• Generating knowledge and information to address social and economic issues;
• Facilitating and promoting research, training, and allied activities through collaboration with social science institutions and research agencies;
• Promoting exchange of infrastructure facilities among members of the Association for research and training in empirical and theoretical studies and investigations; and
• Fostering the training of researchers and to undertake training programmes.

The founding members of the Association were:

K.R. Narayanan, Vice-Chancellor, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi

Shri Prakash Tandon, Director-General, National Council of Applied Economic Research, New Delhi

B.K. Madan, Chairman, Management Development Institute, New Delhi

J.P. Naik, Member-Secretary, Indian Council of Social Science Research, New Delhi

Uma Roy Choudhary, Vice-President, Indian Association for Research in National Income and Wealth, New Delhi

Malcolm S. Adiseshiah, Vice-Chancellor, University of Madras, Madras

Professor V.M. Dandekar, Director, Gokhale Institute of Politics and Economics, Pune

Amrik Singh, Vice-Chancellor, Punjabi University, Patiala

Tarlok Singh, Member, Indian Council of World Affairs, New Delhi