Development Management Institute, Patna, was conceived to be a High-Performance Knowledge Institution. The Institutional design provided for thee Collaborative Action Research and Education (CARE) Centres (https://www.dmi.ac.in/about-care-centres); the thematic areas of the three together represent DMI’s substantive academic focus. All three insist upon engagement at the grassroots level to excerpt dynamic understanding of the life-worlds of the marginalised sections and the resource-poor. As a professional field, it is not to be content with just the knowledge but to further explore and determine transformational pathways. All of it is to act as the bedrock of the educational programmes and initiatives of the institute. 

Growth is imperative. All Management education programmes (MBAs) aim to build a robust economistic orientation and prepare their graduates in the service of growth. Development Management also accepts this position, albeit emphasising that growth has to be distributed and dispersed. While thinking of distributed growth as the central problematique of development, the DMI perforce seeks to impart a sociological imagination to the economistic core of Management Education. 

This perspective guides DMI’s academic initiatives in all its forms. The portfolio includes Post Graduate Programme in Development Management (https://www.dmi.ac.in/about-pgdm) and mid-career Competency Enhancement Programmes (https://www.dmi.ac.in/about-competencies-enhancement-programmes-ceps). The former prepares young college graduates for work-lives in the arena of development; the latter acts as a forum for people already working in development organisations for a ‘return to school’ experience to update their professional knowledge and competencies. 

The preceding is only a brief; welcome to the exciting yet challenging world of Development Management. Welcome to the DMI.  

Best wishes

Debiprasad Mishra