Research & Projects
Centres and Their Microsites
Centre for Child and Youth Transitions (CCYT)
CCYT was established at the School of Liberal Studies (SoLS), BMU, in 2025. It is a one-of-a-kind centre that brings together researchers, practitioners, policymakers and activists who work with and study issues affecting children and youth in the Global South and beyond.
CCYT aims to fill the existing gap in teaching, research and policy/ advocacy in the area of childhood and youth past, present and future. Grounded in an interdisciplinary ethos, this Centre aims to identify key and emerging areas for research, plan and carry out teaching programmes through SoLS and engage with non-state and state actors in informing policy decisions and supporting advocacy programmes initiated by young people themselves or their allies.
Centre for Public Policy and Governance (CPPG)
The Centre for Public Policy and Governance (CPPG) at BML Munjal University is an interdisciplinary academic and policy space dedicated to advancing rigorous, ethically grounded and empirically informed public policy scholarship that meaningfully bridges research and practice. CPPG advances its aims through rigorous interdisciplinary research, field-based engagement and evidence-driven policy analysis focused on inequality, sustainability and institutional governance. The Centre seeks to strengthen policymaking processes, foster informed public dialogue and build capacity through teaching and training, translating scholarly insight into actionable contributions to public policy.
Community Transitions Research Centre (CTRC)
The Community Transitions Research Centre (CTRC) at the School of Liberal Studies, BML Munjal University, is an interdisciplinary research initiative that examines how communities navigate ecological, economic and social transitions. Working through collaborations across the Global South and North, including with the University of Leeds, CTRC studies the interplay between material conditions, socio-cultural values and evolving ideas of the “good life.” Its work focuses on sustainability, livelihoods and collective action, combining field-based research, collaborative projects and public engagement. The centre aims to generate grounded insights that support more resilient, equitable and community-led pathways to sustainable futures.
Seed Grant and Other Projects Currently in Operation
Dr. Manu V Mathew received a BMU Seed grant for his research project titled “A Social History of Engineering Education in Kerala.”
PI: Dr. Soumyajit Bhar, CO-PI: Dr. Kalpita Bhar Paul received a BMU seed grant for a research project titled Micro-Studies on Community Transitions in India: Towards Sustainable and Just World for all. The Project intended to analyse how amidst “the tripartite challenges of sustainability, justice and individual well-being”, communities are transitioning and how this is impacting and shaping individuals and communities both, psycho-socially, materially and in terms of value systems.
Dr. Kanupriya Dhingra awarded Visiting Postdoctoral Fellowship (January to April 2025), Max Planck Institute for Legal History and Legal Theory, Frankfurt am Main.
As part of the fellowship, she curated the Institute’s South Asia Collection, developing its holdings in print culture, colonial legal history and vernacular publishing. This work combined archival expertise with bibliographic knowledge of South Asian materials, strengthening the collection’s capacity to support interdisciplinary research at the intersection of law, history and the book.
Dr Kanupriya Dhingra. Awarded Fellow, ICAS: MP (2025-26)
Project title: Rethinking the ‘Library’: Alternative Histories and Knowledge Production in Delhi (1947-Present)
This project examines how libraries and reading infrastructures in Delhi have shaped knowledge production and urban citizenship since Independence. Moving beyond canonical institutional histories, it foregrounds informal, mobile and community-based reading spaces as sites of cultural and political life. The project situates Delhi’s reading ecologies within broader questions of access, memory and the right to knowledge in postcolonial South Asia.
FaRC: Sixth Series, Winter Semester 2026
| Date | Speaker | Discussant | Title |
|---|---|---|---|
| 13 February | Anish Chakravarty Asst Professor, SoLS |
Anup Dhar, SoLS | Suspension of Judgment and Disbelief: Philosophical Bridging between Art & Science. |
| 20 February | Eleonora Pesani School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London |
Pranav Trigunayat, SoLS | Platforming the bai: Dynamics of unfree labour in platformised domestic and care work in India. |
| 13 March | Biplaw Kumar Singh Asst Professor, SoLS |
Anandini Dar, SoLS | Care, Governance and Becoming: Subjectivity of Children and Functionaries in Institutional Care. |
| 20 March | Faculty Reflection of Immersion as a Pedagogic Practice | ||
| 27 March | Tamanna PhD, BMU |
Manu Mathew, SoLS | Are Self-Help Groups Too Self-centred? Loss of the Collective in the Pursuit of the Self |
| 10 April | Urmi Gupta Asst Prof. SoLS |
Nazia Amin, SoLS | Queering Sexual Violence in Conflict Zones |
| 17 April | Kanupriya Dhingra Asst Professor, SoLS |
Suchismita Chattopadhyay, SoLS | Mere Cupid, Mere Devta: Old Delhi’s Subversive Love Letter Writing Manuals |