Kozhikode: Buoyed by the upgrade in all-India rankings, the 20-year-old Indian Institute of Management Kozhikode (IIMK) is planning to expand its footprint by increasing consultancy services and improving accreditations.
Although the IIMK undertakes a good number of consultancy projects, they are mostly from the Kerala government and its organisations. “Owing to the geographical disadvantage, IIMK is not able to attract good consultancy projects from industrial sectors — both manufacturing and service — which the older IIMs are able to capitalise on,” said Prof. Anand Gurumurthy, Chairperson, Accreditation and Ranking Committee, IIMK.
IIMK moved a rung up to the fifth position, from last year’s sixth, in the management category from the previous position in the National Institutions Ranking Framework (NIRF) of the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD). Graduation outcome, research, and outreach helped the institution achieve the recognition.
At present, IIMK programmes are accredited by the Association of MBAs (AMBA). However, other institutions such as IIM Calcutta and IIM Bangalore have obtained accreditations from the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (US), the European Foundation for Management Development (EFMD), and the European Quality Improvement System (EQUIS). “Once IIMK attempts for accreditation from other international agencies, it can also help increase its presence in international space, thereby leverage on accreditations to improve student exchange and curriculum,” Prof. Gurumurthy added.
Even with the increased student strength of 360, the annual median salary during placements increased to around ₹15.50 lakh this year. The research publications increased to 61 in top quality journals. Last year, it was 48 peer-reviewed journal publications.
As regards outreach, Prof. Gurumurthy said IIMK improved on the perception score of recruiters and the public. “This can be due to placement and other co-curricular and extra-curricular activities our students are involved in such as Social Development Projects and the Calicut Mini-marathon,” he said.
However, he felt IIMK was not in favour of overall ranking. “One cannot compare a university with a specialised management institute despite making changes in ranking parameters. By design, universities tend to have a huge performance difference in each of the parameters considered. For example, universities tend to have huge scale in terms of students intake, number of degree programmes offered, number of departments, number of laboratories, high number of faculty members and hence the potential for high number of research publications,” Prof. Gurumurthy pointed out.
