The Indian Institute of Management Udaipur (IIMU), a rapidly ascending management institution, has announced strategic collaborations with the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI), NITI Aayog's Development Monitoring and Evaluation Office (DMEO), and the National Language Translation Mission Bhashini. These agreements, signed in recent weeks, aim to enhance India's data analytics, policy evaluation, and artificial intelligence frameworks, positioning IIMU as a pivotal bridge between academia and national governance priorities.
Under the first pact, IIMU has inked a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with MoSPI's Data Informatics & Innovation Division to act as a Knowledge Partner for the Data Innovation Lab. This initiative will involve IIMU's students, faculty, and researchers in tackling practical statistical issues through hackathons, workshops, and joint research projects.
The focus on data analytics and applied statistics aligns with MoSPI's mandate to modernise India's statistical systems, which underpin economic planning and development indicators like the Gross Domestic Product calculations.
Complementing this, IIMU's Centre for Development Policy and Management (CDPM) entered a Joint Statement of Intent (SOI) with NITI Aayog's DMEO. The partnership targets strengthening monitoring and evaluation practices by localising global standards, crafting toolkits and training curricula, and offering technical support for ministry-level assessments. This includes data collection methodologies and evaluation frameworks for state governments, addressing gaps in evidence-based policymaking amid India's push toward Sustainable Development Goals by 2030.
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IIMU's empanelment as an Anusandhan Mitra with Bhashini marks its entry into AI-driven language technologies. The collaboration seeks to develop regional hubs, enrich datasets for under-represented Indian languages, and advance speech and natural language processing research. By involving students and local communities in co-creating solutions, it supports Bhashini's goal of digital inclusion for over 1.4 billion speakers across 22 scheduled languages, fostering equitable access to AI tools in education and governance.
Collectively, these ties are designed to spur innovation in statistics and policy, cultivate data-driven decision-making, and upskill stakeholders via collaborative programmes. They also integrate international best practices to resolve domestic challenges, such as linguistic barriers in AI adoption and inefficiencies in programme evaluations.
Prof. Ashok Banerjee, IIMU's director, described the alliances as emblematic of the institute's forward-looking ethos. "By combining academic strength, policy imperatives, and technological innovation, we aim to strengthen India's data and evaluation ecosystem while advancing AI-driven solutions for linguistic diversity and inclusion," he stated.
Established in 2011, IIMU has swiftly gained global acclaim, earning AACSB accreditation in just eight years—a milestone for any business school. It holds the distinction of being the only IIM featured in the Financial Times Global MIM Ranking 2025 for the seventh straight year and ranks sixth among IIMs in the QS Global MIM Ranking 2025. UT Dallas data places it fourth in India for management research output in top journals, underscoring its emphasis on impactful scholarship.
These partnerships not only amplify IIMU's contributions to national agendas but also enhance its role in grooming leaders for a data-centric economy, projected to add $500 billion to India's GDP by 2025 through AI and analytics advancements.
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