Bengaluru, Feb 12: GITAM Deemed to be University has appointed Prof. Rathin Roy as Dean of the School of Humanities and Social Sciences. Prof. Roy is one of India’s senior public finance economists, with more than three decades of experience in fiscal policy, macroeconomic governance and institutional reform. He served as Director and Chief Executive Officer of the National Institute of Public Finance and Policy under the Ministry of Finance, Government of India. He later led the Overseas Development Institute in London, a global policy think tank. His career includes senior assignments with the United Nations Development Programme in New York, Bangkok and Brasília. He served as Economic Adviser to the Thirteenth Finance Commission of India in the rank of Joint Secretary, contributing to constitutional fiscal federalism and public expenditure frameworks. He has taught at the University of Manchester and the University of London. He holds a PhD and MPhil in Economics from the University of Cambridge, an MA from Jawaharlal Nehru University and a BA from St. Stephen’s College.
His appointment strengthens GITAM’s intellectual core at a decisive stage in its evolution. As the University advances its transition into a multidisciplinary, research-driven institution grounded in knowledge and integrity, it is consolidating leadership in disciplines that shape state capacity, institutional design and public reasoning. Humanities and Social Sciences are not peripheral to that ambition. They are foundational.
The School anchors economics, political science, sociology, psychology and related fields that frame how societies allocate resources, govern institutions and resolve competing claims on the public exchequer. In a research university expanding its work in technology, medicine, management and applied sciences, these disciplines provide the analytical structure within which innovation becomes policy and research becomes reform.
Under Prof. Roy’s leadership, the School will deepen scholarship in political economy, public finance and development economics, with particular attention to fiscal federalism, regulatory design and institutional accountability. It will build structured research clusters aligned with national development priorities and strengthen engagement with government departments, regulatory authorities and multilateral institutions. It will integrate rigorous empirical policy analysis into undergraduate and postgraduate teaching and reinforce interdisciplinary pathways under GITAM’s liberal education framework.
This appointment advances GITAM’s stated objective of strengthening intellectual depth and national relevance as it evolves from a strong regional institution into a university recognised for research, applied learning and policy engagement. By placing fiscal governance and institutional economics at the centre of its Humanities and Social Sciences agenda, GITAM signals that its growth in research and innovation will be anchored in serious engagement with public systems and economic design.