Performance Based Incentive for Research Publications-A Best Practice

Abstract

National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) has been developed by Ministry of Human Resource and Development (MHRD), Govt. of India. The NIRF has been drafted to provide an Indian context to educational aspiration and needs for two categories of institutions viz category 'A' mainly research and category 'B' mainly teaching. The NIRF provides for ranking of institutions under five broad generic parameters namely: i)Teaching, Learning and Resources; ii) Research, Professional Practice and Collaborative Performance; iii) Graduation Outcomes; iv) Outreach and inclusively and v) Perception.

The importance of quality publications is highlighted in Research Publication metrics, which forms an important component of Research, Professional Practice and collaboration performance parameter. In Outcome Based Education, every faculty is required to contribute towards Research Publications. The institutions need to motivate the faculty to understand the importance of Research Publications in the context of National Institutional Ranking.

Towards this goal, we have developed a methodology called "Performance Based Incentive for Research Publications". The incentive provides financial benefits to faculty members an amount equal to 15% of their Basic Pay during four months viz. Nov/Dec and May/June of the current academic year. The four months are the semester break months. The Performance Based Incentive is linked to both the quality and number of publications. The quality of publications is in relation to publications indexed in Scopus, Web of Science and Google scholar. The publications indexed in Scopus get maximum benefits of 15% of basic pay. The benefit gets decreased for publications indexed in Web of Sciences and Google Scholar in that order.

The application of Performance Based Incentive at author's college has resulted in increase in the number of publications which has a bearing on getting better score in the National Institutional Ranking.