CMDR has been in existence for more than four decades. Every passing year provides us with the opportunity for introspection and future planning. CMDR has witnessed a tumultuous struggle in the past for its survival. Its struggle for strengthening itself as a major think tank in north Karnataka for sustenance and growth continues. CMDR’s future initiatives aim at making it an academically vibrant social science research institute with a national and global presence and a financially viable institution. Those who have been observing the development of CMDR since its inception must have noted that CMDR has been known as an institute focusing on social sectors, especially education and health, which it regards as the triggers for the overall development of the region and its people. The Centre has also focused on the micro-level perspectives of the sector/s or sub-sectors. This is because while the aggregative perspectives may be helpful, micro-level perspectives are necessary for understanding the various nuances of the developmental issues and the necessary ingredients for policy making. CMDR has also initiated research on the themes of decentralized governance and Panchayati Raj, which are so very crucial for empowerment at grassroots levels. The micro level studies on evaluation in the field of education, health, and environmental challenges associated with lifestyles (like smoking, gutka, passive smoking, etc., and their effects on air quality, health and even education) conducted by the Centre are too important to be overlooked. CMDR has diversified its research including the areas of ethnographic studies, inclusive growth, marginalized sections, common property and water resources, etc.
It may not be an overstatement that CMDR has been one of the pioneering institutes among the ICSSR institutes in conducting action research. There have been many firsts for CMDR, as far as social science research is concerned. CMDR is probably one of the first institutes in Karnataka, if not in the southern region of the country, to undertake pioneering studies in tobacco economics, tobacco cultivation and tobacco consumption, integrated action research with academic research; it is perhaps one of the very few institutes emphasizing the importance of supply side controls and the need for coordinated international level initiatives for effective tobacco control; it is also probably the first to highlight the need for systematic studies of merit goods, such as addiction to tobacco, alcohol, etc.
CMDR is the first to demonstrate the usefulness of novel approaches in decision-making, such as sectoral accounting systems like health accounting, educational accounting, natural resource accounting, etc. Its action research in terms of adoption of certain villages for tobacco and health economics studies, etc., and combined with insights derived from academic research studies with regard to selected areas, can be considered highly challenging and useful. The Centre has been emphasizing the importance of multi-disciplinary perspectives in its research and trying to pool different expertise on a common research platform to deliberate on the issues of socio-economic development. Centre has been designated as an Education Data Bank and its very detailed Data and Information System publications on Elementary Education and Higher Education have been considered as pioneering attempts in compilation, processing and presentation of the quantitative and qualitative data on these sub-sectors of education.
The initiatives taken by the Centre in the field of environmental economics, such as trade and environment, common property resources, the study of medicinal plants, water resource management, ethnography, tobacco-related issues, regional imbalance, decentralization, depressed classes, water supply, sanitation, and social sector development quite notable and they need to be further strengthened.