The Institute has from time to time identified thrust areas of research, around which several research projects and studies are designed cutting across disciplinary boundaries. Some of the research themes are mandatory as per the guidelines of the funding agencies, but in addition to these, in consultation with the faculty the following thrust areas on the basis of contemporary research and policy issues have emerged in recent periods:

• Agricultural Economy in the context of WTO and Globalization – Implications and imperatives. Decision-making at Micro and Macro-level in Agricultural and horticultural Production and Processing sectors. Analysis of State Level Trends in Agricultural development. Institutions and agricultural development; Emerging issues in Agricultural labour markets; Irrigation & Water Management.

• Understanding the Growth Process at the State level: Study of Investment in industry. Review of Studies and Developing a Framework for Modeling of the Service Sectors. Industrial Economics; Fiscal and Financial Economics; Economics of Education; Infrastructure Economics; Labour Economics and Decentralisation.

• Universalisation of primary education: Challenges, dynamics and prospects; Planning and management of school education - Issues & Concerns; Promotion of equity and justice in school participation and utilisation of facilities; Quality of teachers, School Infrastructure; Transactional processes; Customer satisfactions and related issues. Higher education : Marco issues of financing education; Efficiency of State expenditures; Education and Development.

• Role of rural local organisations in social sector development; Natural resource management and basic services. Theory of collective action and functions of local organisations; Fiscal and sociological dimensions of decentralisation to contribute to the ongoing process of reforms in decentralisation in Karnataka, and other states.

• Challenges and Potentials to Collective Action and Life in a Globalising City; Backward Castes; Dalits and Women in a Rapidly Changing Society; Society Politics and Decentralised Governance.

• Governance (including Democracy, Decentralisation and Ethics) and Development. Development Politics and Development Administration.

• Reproductive Child Health (RCH); District Level Rapid Household Surveys under RCH project in Karnataka, Kerala and Goa; Maternal Mortality at district level for RCH programmes; Special social status studies: Socio-economic status of widows; biological correlates menopausal age, and female autonomy and reproductive health.