Origin / Activities of the Institute

About Us

The Institute for Studies in Industrial Development (ISID) is a national-level public funded research and educational institution affiliated to the Indian Council of Social Science Research, Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India. The objectives of the ISID include:

to undertake, promote, and co-ordinate research in the area of industrial development, with special emphasis on the problems of India and its relationship with other countries of the world; to build and maintain research infrastructure and databases on the Indian economy in general and the industrial and corporate sectors, in particular;

to provide a forum for exchange of views for understanding of the operations of socio-economic systems in the framework of planned industrial development;

to provide academic and professional training and guidance to agencies, institutions and scholars engaged in advanced study and research in the area of industrial economics and related policy issues;

to organize and conduct programmes of Refresher Courses and Summer Schools for academics, civil servants and others with a view to improving the quality of teaching and policy planning, implementation and research; and

to develop close working relations in teaching and research in the area of interest of the Institute with Universities and Colleges, Governments (Central and State) and public bodies, societies and associations which are organised to pursue similar objectives.

The ISID has taken a lead in making available its working papers on the Internet so that interested scholars can download them for free. Acknowledgement and suggestions from the researchers are welcome to generate further discussions on the subjects and enhanced dissemination.

The National Informatics Centre (NIC) has provided the ISID with Internet connectivity through high speed RF Link.

The University Grants Commission (UGC) has provided support to enable free access by scholars based in Indian Universities and academic institutions to the ISID On-Line Data Bases for Index to 100 Social Science Journals and Newspaper Clippings.One of the developmental thrusts of University Grants Commission (UGC) has been to provide information and database in easily retrievable form to teachers and researchers. UGC has been working through INFLIBNET, INSDOC, Indian Institute of Sciences, Bangalore, SNDT Women's University, Mumbai and M.S. University of Baroda in its series of efforts to improve quality through sharing of information and database.

On 5th March, 1999 the University Grants Commission signed an agreement with the Institute for Studies in Industrial Development, New Delhi (ISID), to provide free access of the ISID databases to teachers and researchers in universities and colleges. The database provides the 'missing tool' in the armoury of researchers in Social Sciences. In addition to books, a basic requirement of all researchers and teachers is to identify relevant reading materials, articles in academic journals and current debates in the Press. This requirement is met by availability of data/information on the Website.

Now, there are nearly 1,95,000 entries in the On-line Index (OLI) of articles in social science journals and 8,61,000 entries in the Press Clippings Index (PCI) covering articles, news items, editorials and book reviews. This database is now available to teachers and researchers in easily retrievable form on INTERNET. ISID is working towards full text downloading of its working papers and also permissible access to other materials.
Website addresses are: http://isid.org.in/ or http://isidev.nic.in
This Internet service is made available with the support of the National Informatics Centre (NIC) who provides the Internet connectivity through high speed RF link.

While inaugurating the Website Ms Armaity S Desai, Chairperson, UGC, felt that the Website will meet a long standing need of social science researchers. She compared the efforts of ISID with those of the Institute of Sciences in the field of Sciences. With the fast spread of internet connectivity, a researcher sitting in far-flung areas like Meghalaya, Jammu & Kashmir, Kerala, Gujarat or even abroad will have access to the ISID database almost instantly and with equal ease.