The IISERs have a leadership problem

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Students celebrate durng the convocation ceremony at the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research in Bhopal on August 3, 2026. | Photo Credit: A.M. Faruqui

T he Indian government created the Indian Institutes of Science Education and Research (IISERs) to offer students an intellectually vibrant research environment and to bring them into research at a relatively — vis-à-vis the Indian milieu — early stage.

The institutions prize autonomy as an essential ingredient of good science, including in the form of scientists being able to decide which questions are worth pursuing and with what resources. Top-down control is inimical to this vision. That said, the government also brought the IISERs within the statutory framework of the National Institutes of Technology, Science Education and Research Act 2007, which required each IISER to have a Board of Governors that included senior government officials and other government nominees. The IISER statutes specify, among others, the secretary of higher education and the director of the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bengaluru too.

While publicly funded science should be publicly accountable, suboptimal appointments or outright vacancies are objectionable as they can lead to policy paralysis — at best.

The IISc director is an ex-officio member of most IISERs. The chair of IISER Pune’s Board is also the chairperson of the Visvesvaraya National Institute of Technology, Nagpur. The chair of the IISER Berhampur Board was given “additional charge” while also chairing the Board of IIIT Guwahati; the Board also has nominated positions lying vacant, including one for an IIT director and two for eminent scientists.

IISER Bhopal’s current director is listed as the “director-in-charge” after their predecessor, Gobardhan Das, left to join NITI Aayog in June. At IISER Thiruvananthapuram, the chairperson simultaneously chairs the Boards of IIIT Kottayam and the Indian Institute of Information Technology, Design and Manufacturing, Kurnool.

There are also signs of churn among sitting government officials. Interim appointments are routine and vacancies can arise during transitions. Ex-officio positions also change when officials move between posts. But taken together, several IISERs are operating under temporary or incomplete leadership.

A closer look at the qualifications of the extant leaders also raises questions.

IISER Pune chairperson M. Madan Gopal is a retired IAS officer whose educational background is in commerce and journalism. Its director is a chemical engineer by training, whereas the IISERs have little focus on engineering. IISER Thiruvananthapuram chairperson Vijayalakshmi Deshmane is a surgeon. IISER Tirupati chairperson Hari Bhartia is a chemical engineer and co-founder of the Jubilant Bhartia Group. IISER Berhampur chairperson Satyabrata Dey is an executive in the footwear industry.

While there is no rule that the chairperson of a scientific institution must be a scientist, it matters for each institution’s credibility and vision.