How a younger faculty is beginning to address the issue of brain drain

For Silpa Satheesh, returning to India was never only about coming home. It was about living in a place where she wanted her child to grow up, embracing an education system that had shaped her own academic journey.

“I don’t regret that decision,” says Satheesh, an Assistant Professor at IIM Kozhikode. She wanted her child to grow up close to family in Kerala, surrounded by “love and mutual aid”, on the banks of the Meenachil River. Professionally, she wanted to contribute to the public education system that had played a defining role in her own journey.

Satheesh holds a PhD in Sociology from University of South Florida. Much of her research draws on Kerala’s socio-ecological landscape. For her, the decision was not about retreating from a global academic career but extending her research in a context she knows up and close. IIM Kozhikode gave an institutional setting supporting interdisciplinary learning and research. “There are, of course, socio-cultural rigidities and bureaucratic hiccups that pose unique challenges for faculty,” she says.

Like Satheesh, a growing pool of Indian scholars trained overseas is looking to build academic careers in their home country. Most of them are young.

IIM Bangalore is one of the clearest examples. Among IIMs with more than 100 faculty members, it stands out for the size of its younger faculty—nearly 30% of its roughly 150 faculty members are below 35. A few years ago, the number was less than 10. The young faculty includes researchers who completed higher education outside the country and chose India over opportunities overseas. Sourav Mukherji, Dean, Faculty, Organisational Behaviour & Human Resources Management, IIM-B, says the shift reflects a broader evolution of the older IIMs. The traditionally teaching-intensive institutions have started focusing on research and publication as global rankings become closely linked to research output. “That has increased the importance of younger faculty,” he says. “You cannot suddenly ask someone who has spent years in administrative responsibilities to start producing top-quality research papers. It is possible but would be exceptional.” The shift has coincided with IIM-B’s stronger global positioning. The school climbed seven places to the 21st spot in the 2026 FT 2025 Masters in Management rankings with gains in areas such as research and internationalisation.

The change is not just about recruiting younger faculty. Mukherji says research networks are becoming an increasingly important part of the equation. “Producing high-quality research is not just about being a good researcher. Whether a paper makes it into a leading journal can also depend on factors such as the data you have access to, the research collaborations you have developed, and the broader academic network you are a part of.”

Internationally trained faculty can bring research networks, exposure to international practices and, in some cases, a strong publication record. But Mukherji says international credentials are not, by themselves, the selection criterion. “We are not explicitly giving a preference to people simply because they have studied abroad. The preference is towards younger faculty who are research-oriented and have the potential to contribute strongly to the institute’s research agenda.”

Brain Circulation

The return of foreign-trained academics is a relatively recent trend. It would be premature to call it a reversal of the brain drain over the past many decades. Professor Anubha Agarwal, Economics Area and IIM-B Young Faculty Research Chair, says India’s research environment has improved significantly even though it continues to lag the best global institutions in funding and infrastructure. “Western nations had a considerable head start,” she says, pointing to decades of investment in research, infrastructure and institutions. India, she notes, devoted a smaller share of GDP to research and built much of its university system around teaching and not discovery.

Agarwal says younger faculty at IIM-B have considerable academic freedom, lighter teaching loads and gets research grants, international conference funding and research resources. Visiting global scholars give exposure to international research.

Abhay Sobhanan, IIM-B Young Faculty Research Chair in the Decision Sciences Area, studied overseas but says the decision to return was driven largely by the institution and the kind of research he could pursue here. “IIM-B has the institutional quality, colleagues and research support that let me do methodological work without compromise,” he says. “And there is a simpler reason too: it is good to be back in your own country.”

But it’s not just a story of India getting talent. Kedar Nath Thakur, Assistant Professor and Faculty In-charge–MDP and Faculty In-charge–Alumni, MDI Gurgaon, paints a more complex picture. The faculty mix at leading B-schools is changing with scholars trained at Indian institutions increasingly joined by those with international doctorates and teaching experience. Some of the pull is genuine as India offers a fast-changing set of problems to study, he says. Also, stronger rankings and international accreditations have made an Indian faculty position more credible on a CV.

But external factors are playing a role too. In 2025, funding cuts and visa uncertainty in the US unsettled many Indian-origin post-docs and PhD students hoping to build a career there. India may not be pulling that talent back so much as catching it at a point people are reconsidering career plans, says Thakur.

Will these people stay? The answer, says Thakur, may lie in the details of academic life: how quickly research budgets and lab approvals come through, how clear is the tenure and promotion path, and whether the young faculty members have genuine autonomy.

There is another paradox. As Indian B-schools improve their global credentials, their faculty become more visible, intensifying the competition to retain that very talent.

India, a Research Lab

India’s fast-expanding consumer economy, dense urban markets, flexible workforce and fast-growing digital infrastructure trigger questions that are locally important as well as academically significant.

Sobhanan’s research looks at last-mile delivery, workload equity for gig workers and warehouse operators, the areas where Indian businesses are grappling with questions of cost, speed, reliability and scale. “Many underlying decisions—how to route a fleet, allocate work across delivery partners, run a warehouse floor—are still made with simple rules or intuition,” he says. For a researcher trained in mathematical methods, this creates an opportunity to work on academic models with direct commercial relevance. The field is wide, with Indian B-schools working on diverse areas such as AI, sustainability, digital transformation, healthcare, entrepreneurship and future of work.

Sebastian MP, Dean (Faculty Administration & Development) at IIM Kozhikode, describes a shift towards a more interdisciplinary and globally connected faculty, with management scholars increasingly combining their traditional disciplines with data science, AI, psychology, sociology, public policy, climate science, design and engineering.

The Young Advantage

A younger faculty does not automatically mean better faculty. Experience, institutional knowledge and academic mentorship remain critical. The emerging model is, therefore, less about replacing senior professors than creating a stronger mix of generations.

“They (the younger faculty) are good at research and publication. This benefits the ecosystem, because they will train our PhD students. Even some senior faculty, including people like us, learn a lot by listening to them. So, that is a huge advantage for the institute when it comes to research and publication.”

But that also creates a need for contextual understanding. Mukherji points to an area where the younger, internationally trained faculty may need support: teaching. “A significant part of an IIM’s income comes from executive education where we conduct three-day or five-day programmes for top executives. These executives need contextual understanding. You cannot present a theoretical model. You have to relate it to their context.”

Someone who has done his PhD in the US may lack contextual knowledge, he says. “We have a Centre for Teaching and Learning where we develop their teaching and help them start applied research in the Indian context.”

Indian Knowledge

For decades, Indian B-schools relied heavily on theories, cases and frameworks developed in Western markets. They now want to add the Indian experience to these layers.

IIM Kozhikode’s Sebastian says globally connected faculty can help B-schools build visibility through high-quality publications, global conferences, editorial roles, collaborative research and engagement with international institutions. But globalisation should not mean reproducing research agendas developed elsewhere, he says.

IIM Kozhikode describes the approach as “globalising Indian thought”, turning the country’s institutional innovations, organisational experiences and societal challenges into knowledge that matters globally. Digital public infrastructure, financial inclusion, platform businesses, entrepreneurship, healthcare delivery and AI adoption are some of the areas where research can be relevant far beyond India.

The Pull Factors

The decision to return is not being driven by one factor. Compensation matters but so do academic freedom, research funding, infrastructure, teaching loads, career progression and institutional culture.

“As a public institution, our salaries are quite low. That is my biggest challenge in attracting faculty,” says IIM-B’s Mukherji. “We have tried some chair professorships. For example, every faculty member who joins gets something like a Young Faculty Chair, which supplements their income. But we cannot match the compensation that a private school can offer.”

But there are other pull factors too. “IIM Bangalore has a beautiful campus. There is value in coming and settling down here with your future spouse and children. Some of these softer factors help.”

Research support is another part of the proposition. “There are also a lot of research grants which can sometimes be difficult to access in the US. Here, the institute is quite flexible.”

But the competition for talent remains real. “We often have a bright Indian PhD holder on the job market. But when we make an offer, and If Wharton or Harvard is also making him an offer, he may choose that. Our hit rate is not very high. But we live with that.”

Agarwal says there is a real interest among Indian academics to return home driven by an improvement in India’s academic environment as well as a desire to contribute to the country’s education and research ecosystem.

Sobhanan points to three changes that have made a difference: the rise in the quality and global visibility of research from Indian institutions, stronger industry-academia collaboration and better funding opportunities. He also points to opportunities for faculty and PhD students, including the ANRF Prime Minister Early Career Research Grant he received this year.

The real test is retention. That will require research autonomy, funding, predictable career paths, and an intellectually stimulating environment.

The bigger opportunity is what Sebastian calls “brain circulation”, enabling academics to build careers in India while remaining connected to global research networks.

“The future competitiveness of Indian B-schools will depend substantially on their ability to become talent magnets,” says Sebastian.