Kiran PandyaProf Kiran Pandya obtained MPhil degree from the University of Poona, for which he studied at Gokhale Institute of Politics and Economics. He also holds first class master's degree in economics from the M S University of Baroda. He ws awarded a PhD by the University of Sussex (UK). The Commonwealth Commission in UK awarded him the Academic Staff scholarship to pursue his doctoral studies. Currently, he is working as a professor and head of the Department of Human Resource Development, Veer Narmad South Gujarat University, Surat (Gujarat, India). He has more than 35 years of teaching and research experience. He held several important administrative positions in the University.Dr Pandya came back from England in 1993 with an objective to do something for the academic fraternity and for the cause of education. He believed in succession planning and in the past decade and a half, he has trained around 3 generations of students in economics, statistics, econometrics and research methodology. He regularly organized training programmes and workshops in these areas. Research scholars and faculty members from across the region and country participate in these workshops. He is proficient in the use of SPSS, Gretl, R, Minitab and many other statistical softwares. Recently he has revived his interest in Philosophy of Research.

Dr Pandya has worked on many research projects funded by the Government, ICSSR and corporates. Two of his major research works were preparation of the District Human Development Reports of Surat and Tapi districts of Gujarat (India). The reports were to be prepared on behalf of the Government to give them an insight into decentralized planning with an objective to foster development of the districts. He is carrying out ICSSR-sponsored research project as Principal Co-ordinator. Prof Pandya has published number of papers in reputed national and international journals. He is also on the editorial board of few journals. Dr Pandya has co-authored a book on Statistical Analysis using SPSS with Dr Smruti Bulsari. He has also co-authored books in Gujarati, the regional language of Gujarat (India) in area of Quantitative Methods and SPSS.

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