The proposed IIHS Institution of Eminence (IOE) takes urbanisation as the core of a new knowledge paradigm for a new, interdisciplinary, 21st century university. Its structure is built around five interdisciplinary Schools (expanding to ten by 2025) that can institutionally break with the limitations of the one-department-one-discipline model to create new cultures of teaching, research and practice.
Cutting across these Schools are the proposed IIHS IOE’s four core Programmes:
- Academics (including interdisciplinary Bachelor, Master and Doctoral Programmes)
- Research
- Practice
- Capacity Building
It is the cross-cutting nature of these programmes that ensures that the proposed IIHS IOE Schools remain interdisciplinary and do not become silos, and that teaching, and research remain constantly connected to practice. The five initial Schools of the proposed IIHS IOE are:
- School of Systems and Infrastructure
The School of Systems and Infrastructure is particularly identified with the ‘spatial and physical/material terrain’ of urban research and practice including its social, economic and political dimensions. Cities consist of various overlapping systems such as mobility, water, sanitation, solid waste management, energy, food and land. These systems are the central concern of the School. Within the proposed degrees at IIHS IOE, the School will be the core location for the Concentrations on Planning, Housing, Infrastructure, and Urban Design. It is also envisaged that specialised Concentrations in each of the infrastructure systems will be offered separately, including mobility, energy, and environmental services.
- School of Environment and Sustainability
The School of Environment and Sustainability brings together academic, research and practice-based engagements with questions of sustainability and the environment across a wide range of perspectives and disciplines from law, history, political science and philosophy to climate science, hydrology and forestry. This speaks directly to global and domestic policy imperatives: India has renewed its commitment to the Paris Accord as well as National Missions on Solar and Renewable Energy and the National Action Plan on Climate Change. Within the degree programmes of the proposed IIHS IOE, the School will be the core location for the Concentrations on Environment and Climate, and Disaster Risk Reduction. The School will also teach courses on ecology and environmental geography, sustainable regions, environmental law and policy, and energy.
- School of Governance
The School of Governance engages with questions of how, where, when and why settlements are governed. The School has systemic orientation, interdisciplinary reach and spatial focus which are unique to this country and will lead nationally on new and cutting-edge work on urban governance. Drawing on and bringing together disciplines such as law, political science and policy, research, teaching and practice, the School speaks to issues around urban governance that are central to both international as well as domestic urban policy. Teaching at the School will locate the urban in India within a larger constitutional governance framework to enable learners to understand how, by whom and on what basis Indian cities and urban regions are governed and managed. It will do so through an engagement with the State and its institutions at multiple scales as well as the relationships that State actors have with the market, the private sector and other non-State institutions. Within proposed degrees at the IIHS IOE, the School will be the primary location of the Concentration in Law, Policy and Governance. It will also be linked to Concentrations in Land and Housing, Planning, Human Development, Economic Development and Systems and Infrastructure, among others. Land governance related work under the SoG has been placed under a Centre for Land Governance.
- School of Human Development
The School of Human Development focuses on aspects of social transformation, concerned particularly with questions of social and economic inequality. It brings together economic, social, political and spatial dimensions of inequality and draws on multiple disciplines ranging from economics, planning, development studies, social work, public health and education to gender studies, Dalit studies, psychology and sociology. Within the degree programmes of the proposed IIHS IOE, the School will be the primary location for the Concentration in Human Development. It will also be linked to Concentrations in Land and Housing, Policy and Governance, Economic Development and Systems and Infrastructure across other proposed IIHS IOE Schools.
- School of Economic Development
The School of Economic Development focuses on the economies and economic transitions of urban settlements and regions and understanding economic flows and networks across urban and rural places. The urban economy makes up two-thirds of the current global economy and in a few decades, will be more than three-fourths. Much of this economic growth will come from urban regions in Asia and Africa. The School draws upon and brings together work from a range of disciplines including management and finance, economics, area studies, sociology, anthropology, development studies and gender studies to build theory, develop pedagogy and inform practice and policy on the urban and regional economy and economic development. Teaching within the School will include courses across on urban economy, disciplinary courses in urban economics and political economy as well as a range of courses on the key focus areas listed below. Within the degree programmes of the proposed IIHS IOE, the School will be the primary location for the Economic Development concentration, and will co-anchor the Human Development, Planning, Urban Management and Land and Housing concentrations along with other Schools.