Research

Research at the department begins with real problems and draws on the methods best suited to address them — from game theory and stochastic control to epidemiological modelling, machine learning, and qualitative analysis.

Research

Research Areas

Data Governance & AI for Society

Data pricing frameworks, non-personal data policy, AI tools designed for low-income settings, and applied work building AI-assisted tools for underserved communities.

Energy Transitions & Sustainability

Techno-economic modelling, system dynamics, and life-cycle analysis addressing rural energy access, cooking fuel transitions, green hydrogen, demand response, and decarbonisation.

Financial Engineering & Quantitative Markets

High-frequency trading models, options pricing, neural networks for credit risk, portfolio optimisation, and statistical foundations including Bayesian and accelerated life testing methods.

Health Systems & Social Equity

Epidemiological modelling and nationally representative datasets used to examine maternal health access, healthcare inequity, SDG coverage, and COVID-era hospital capacity.

Innovation Ecosystems & Intellectual Property

Sustainability transitions, responsible patent strategy, technology partnerships, and the management of deeptech commercialisation. Examines how innovation is governed and who benefits.

Water Systems & Resource Management

Economic modelling of transboundary water disputes, river basin optimisation, machine learning for water infrastructure, and institutional analysis of India's water governance.

Papers

Selected Publications

A Novel System Dynamics Modelling Approach to Investigate Cooking Fuel Transitions and Policy Effectiveness: An Application in Rural India

Narlanka S.R., Balachandra P.

Energy · 2025

Forecasting High Frequency Order Flow Imbalance using Hawkes Processes

Nittur Anantha A., Jain S.

Computational Economics · 2025

Exploring the Interplay between Intellectual Property Models and Sustainability Transitions: A Multi-level Analysis

Jain A., Gurtoo A., Eppinger E., Vimalnath P., Tietze F.

Business Strategy and the Environment · 2024

Demand Response: An Effective Solution for Dynamic Balancing of Variable Supply with Variable Demand — Evidence from the Indian Electricity System

Sambasivam B., Balachandra P.

Energy & Environment · 2024

Predictors of the Utilisation of Continuum of Maternal Health Care Services in India

Gandhi S., Gandhi S., Dash U., Suresh Babu M.

BMC Health Services Research · 2022

Machine Learning-Based Digital Twin for Water Distribution Network Anomaly Detection and Localization

Pandey P., Mücke N.T., Jain S., Ramachandran P., Bohté S.M., Oosterlee C.W.

Engineering Proceedings · 2024

Resilient Food-Biodiversity Outcomes via Stochastic Control of Multiplex Socio-Ecological Networks under Water Stress

Dragicevic A.Z., Afsharinia B., Gurtoo A., Stahn H.

Advances in Complex Systems · 2025

Economics of Small-Scale Biomass-to-X Systems for Advanced Biofuel Production: A Case Study from India

Ganesh G.S., Balachandra P., Shivapuji A.M.

Energy Conversion and Management · 2024