Environmental regulation, governance from below, and Frugal AI — three strands of research asking who really shapes the rules.
Prof. Rusha Das’s research in the Public Policy area at IIM Bangalore sits at the intersection of environmental politics, policymaking, and governance, with a particular interest in regulatory politics in fragmented governance contexts.
Her research spans three interconnected areas.
- Her first strand examines the political dynamics of environmental regulation. In her doctoral dissertation, she explored changes in India’s Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) regulations through a neo-Gramscian perspective. The dissertation received the Academy of Management’s Critical Management Division Best Dissertation Award (Highly Commended, 2024). Work emerging from her doctoral research is currently under review at the Journal of Management Studies and Sociology.
- Her second strand examines infrastructure governance and governance from below particularly how communities engage with the state, participate in prefigurative politics, and exercise agency in imagining alternative futures.
- Her third strand explores Frugal AI as governance infrastructure for sustainability transitions, with a particular focus on coastal sustainability. She will be presenting related research at the 2026 Swiss Sociological Association Conference at the University of Fribourg and the International Sustainability Transitions Conference at ETH Zurich.
Professor Das’s research journey has a strong international dimension. She was awarded the Swiss Government Excellence Scholarship in 2020–21 for a research fellowship at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies (IHEID), where she subsequently served as a Visiting Research Fellow and Research Associate at the Albert Hirschman Centre on Democracy. She has also been a Visiting Researcher at the Centre for Environmental Law at the University of Exeter, UK. She is the recipient of the Young Women Researcher Award in Public Policy (2025) and a research grant from the Zurich University of Applied Sciences (ZHAW), held jointly with Dr Christine Lutringer of the Graduate Institute Geneva.
Beyond research, Professor Das engages actively with executive education and policy practice. She recently conducted a training session for IRS Commissioners on the National Green Tribunal, examining institutional objectives, regulatory frameworks and institutional delivery. She is also actively involved in international programme design at IIM Bangalore. Professor Das designed and led the inaugural Switzerland module of the Business Planning for International Markets (BPIM) programme, marking IIMB’s first engagement with the Swiss market. The programme explores how firms navigate international markets shaped by regulatory regimes, sustainability imperatives and complex institutional environments. The module brought together academic and practitioner perspectives through engagements with institutions including the World Health Organization, the United Nations Office at Geneva, Deloitte, the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, the University of Geneva, the Geneva Chancellery and the Swiss-Indian Chamber of Commerce. The program initiative was congratulated by H.E. Ambassador Arindam Bagchi, Ambassador and Permanent Representative of India to the United Nations, during immersion week in Geneva 2025.
At IIM Bangalore, Professor Das teaches Environmental Politics at the doctoral level and Business, Government and Society: Ethics and Responsible Business for PGP students. Across her research, teaching, and programme engagement, Professor Das emphasises the importance of understanding markets and organisations as institutionally embedded systems shaped by regulation, technology, social norms, politics, and public purpose.
