Dr. Sanchari Mukhopadhyay
Associate Fellow, MA, M.Phil, PhD (Regional Development), JNU, New Delhi
V. V. Giri National Labour Institute (VVGNLI), Noida
Dr. Sanchari Mukhopadhyay is a Faculty at the V. V. Giri National Labour Institute (VVGNLI), Noida, working at the intersection of labour, gender, urban development, and public policy. She is a critical human geographer whose work engages with regional development, labour market transformations, informality, the gendered organisation of work, the political economy of welfare, and the institutional and fiscal frameworks shaping employment conditions and workers’ livelihoods in India.
She holds a PhD and MPhil in Regional Development from Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), New Delhi. Her doctoral research examined livelihood networks and socio-spatial transformations among the vulnerable population in peri-urban regions, contributing to broader debates on informal labour, urbanisation, and inclusive development in the Global South.
At VVGNLI, Dr. Mukhopadhyay has led several national-level training and capacity-building programmes on gender and labour issues, women in the informal economy, unpaid care work, women and migration, social protection, start-ups, and the future of work, contributing to policy dialogue and labour governance reforms. She has undergone specialised professional training across multiple thematic areas related to labour policy, gender, and evidence-based governance, including the International Labour Organization’s Training of Trainers programme on Evidence-based Policymaking for Decent Work and Social Justice and the Training of Trainers (ToT) Programme on Gender Budgeting, jointly organised by UN Women and the Ministry of Women and Child Development, Government of India.
Prior to joining VVGNLI, she served as Thematic Lead – Local Governance and Budget at the Centre for Budget and Governance Accountability (CBGA), where she led research and policy engagement on labour and employment programmes, gender-responsive budgeting, care economy financing, and social welfare systems. Her work included analysis of major employment schemes such as MGNREGS and DAY-NULM, examining regional disparities, gender gaps in labour force participation, and labour vulnerabilities among informal and migrant workers, including during the COVID-19 pandemic.
She has also been associated with the Global Development Network (GDN), a public international organisation as Fellow in Knowledge Systems. She led the Asia division, and anchored the Doing Research Assessment, an initiative examining how research systems function across the Global South, promoting evidence-informed policymaking. She has contributed meaningfully as a discussant in strategic consultations informing GDN’s global roadmap for strengthening research systems in developing and transition countries.
Earlier in her career, Dr. Mukhopadhyay has worked as a Research Analyst at the International Water Management Institute (IWMI), contributing to the Water Chapter of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Sixth Assessment Report on climate adaptation and water governance. She was also associated as a Research Fellow with the national project ‘The Himalayan Cryosphere: Science and Society’, jointly implemented by the Centre for the Study of Regional Development (CSRD), JNU, and the Department of Science and Technology (DST), Government of India.
She has published extensively in edited volumes, peer-reviewed journals, and national newspapers as well as digital policy platforms. Her academic contributions include publications with leading international publishers such as Routledge and the Springer Nature Geography Series. Her research articles and policy commentaries have appeared in Down To Earth, IndiaSpend, and The Statesman, with her work also featured on International Water and Sanitation Centre (IRC) WASH’s global knowledge platform. She has actively participated in national policy roundtables and has served as panel discussant and speaker in national and international forums on gender and labour, urban studies, and the development of social science research systems in India and Asia. She has presented her research at leading international universities and conferences, including the University of Salzburg (Austria), York University (Toronto), Humboldt University of Berlin (Germany), and Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (France), as well as spoke as panellist at major academic and policy platforms such as the Annual Conference of the Indian Society of Labour Economics (ISLE), the Gender IFI Summer School (International Financial Institutions), the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women (CSW), the Association of European Schools of Planning (AESOP) Annual Congress, and International conferences on taxation, care economy, and development finance.
Dr. Mukhopadhyay is a recipient of the prestigious DAAD Scholarship for Junior Scientists at the University of Cologne, Germany, and the UGC Merit Scholarship for University Rank Holders in recognition of her academic excellence.
