The ‘virtual’ School of Research Methodology (SoRM), TISS Mumbai was constituted in 2015 with a three-fold objective of streamlining knowledge dissemination and management at the Institute, strengthening and deepening of the statistical foundations of Social Science research, and designing curriculum/teaching methodological and philosophical aspects of Social Science research.

From the academic year 2015-16 onwards, SoRM will have 3 focuses –teaching of RM, deepening of Research by pooling the faculty from across schools and thirdly knowledge management and dissemination through the publishing of a range of papers and manuscripts. To enrich the process of knowledge generation and transformation at the Institute level, the SoRM will further streamline the M.Phil. and Ph.D. Programme Management at TISS, convene the activities of Institutional bodies (Research Council, Institutional Review Board), deepen generic and inter-disciplinary research by the Faculty and initiate research in areas where funding may not be readily available.

n addition, the SoRM will improvise on the dissemination of research resulting from Field Action Projects, RC Projects and to provide faculty/research scholars with an avenue for publishing their research manuscripts, the documentation process at the Institute will also be strengthened. This will include initiating seminars from completed RC projects, timely content management and publishing of new dissemination outputs (working papers, project reports, information on TISS Publications, discussion papers, policy briefs, case studies) on the R&D website and also planning for new journals in addition to the existing Indian Journal of Social Work.

The SoRM will also strengthen research methodology related support available for scholars as well as younger faculty by organizing orientation/refresher/training courses in Research Methods and by offering a variety of skill-based workshops (statistical software packages, library resources usage, academic writing, language skills) for M.Phil. and Ph.D. scholars of the Institute.