INSTITUTE FOR FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT AND RESEARCH

Their core work

The Institute for Financial Management and Research (IFMR) is an Indian economics and social science research institute based in Chennai that conducts rigorous empirical research on markets, finance, and labour in developing-country contexts. Their H2020 work involves hosting or supporting ERC-funded researchers whose projects examine how social structures shape economic behaviour — from the topology of networked markets and relational contracts to gender-based inequalities in labour and social reproduction. IFMR brings institutional infrastructure and field-research capacity in India, enabling experimental and ethnographic studies that could not be conducted in a purely European setting. Their academic output sits at the intersection of development economics, economic sociology, and gender studies.

What they specialise in

How they've shifted over time

Their earlier ERC-linked work (EMBED, from 2018) centred on the structural economics of markets — networks, embeddedness, relational contracts, and formal graph-theoretic approaches to understanding how transactions are organised. The later project (LawsOfSocRep, also starting 2018 but running to 2025) marks a clear thematic shift toward feminist political economy, with keywords focused on women's labour and social reproduction rather than market topology. This suggests the institute either broadened its research agenda to encompass gender dimensions of economic life, or hosts researchers from distinct disciplinary traditions — pointing toward an interdisciplinary social-science identity rather than a narrowly defined economics focus.

IFMR appears to be evolving from quantitative market-structure research toward broader political-economy and gender-focused inquiry, suggesting growing interest in collaborations that combine rigorous empirical methods with social and feminist theory.

How they like to work

IFMR has participated in both H2020 projects as a partner, never as coordinator — a pattern consistent with an institution that provides field-research infrastructure and local expertise to ERC-funded principal investigators based elsewhere. Their consortia are very small (3 unique partners across 2 projects), suggesting close, bilateral research relationships rather than large multi-partner networks. This makes them a specialist contributor best approached for targeted partnerships where Indian field access or development-economics expertise is the specific need.

IFMR has collaborated with just 3 unique partners across 2 countries, reflecting the small-consortium nature of ERC individual grants where the grantee's host institution is often the only formal partner. Their geographic footprint spans Europe and India, positioning them as a bridge institution for EU–India research collaborations.

What sets them apart

IFMR is one of very few Indian institutions with a track record of formal participation in ERC-funded Horizon 2020 projects, giving them credibility as a partner for European researchers needing institutional affiliation or field access in South Asia. Their dual competency in quantitative market analysis and qualitative feminist political economy is unusual and valuable for interdisciplinary proposals. For consortium builders, IFMR offers something rare: a non-European anchor institution that satisfies international collaboration requirements while bringing genuine research depth rather than token geographic diversity.

Highlights from their portfolio

• LawsOfSocRep
  The largest-funded project (EUR 411,372, running to 2025) and the more recent ERC Consolidator Grant, reflecting a senior researcher's sustained programme on feminist theory and women's labour in India.
• EMBED
  An ERC Starting Grant combining network theory, field experiments, and finance in Indian market contexts — an unusually rigorous methodological blend for social-science research in a developing-country setting.