Research is considered to be an essential part of academics in the process of understanding a subject thoroughly. It acts as a means of giving life to individual thoughts and beliefs. Therefore, SSLA encourages all students and faculty to undertake research work. For students, these assume the form of two major submissions in their fourth year, the dissertation and the final year seminar paper. Research-oriented writing skills are also essential to the completion of their Internship and Community Outreach Project reports.

All students undertake an independent research project, and submit a dissertation as an essential part for the fulfillment of their undergraduate degree program. This project reflects a student’s Major and Minor subject of study.

Student research is thus interdisciplinary in nature, and spans across the major and minor subjects offered at the school, ranging from philosophy to business studies, and from economics to biology.

The rationale behind the final year seminar, is to inspire and equip students to deliberate on themes of their interest in an academic fashion, and to write a paper that satisfies standard academic conventions (substantive and formal).

In order to encourage self-confidence, the final year seminar papers written by students are sent out for publication.

Many of the noted journals including the International Journal of Social Science and Humanities Research, Journal of Integrated Social Sciences, International Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences, International e-Journal of Advances in Education, and Anthropology and Reinvention: An International Journal of Undergraduate Research, have accepted some of the papers written by students of SSLA, and given them a platform to showcase their research-related writing skills.

In 2015-16, six of our students presented their papers at national and international conferences.

• Anamika Das presented a paper at the Third International Conference on Education and Social Sciences, organised by INTCESS Istanbul, titled ‘Tracing our steps: Is regressive evolution of education an alternative?’
• Two SSLA students presented papers at Chikitsa 2016: ‘Shaadi ka Panchnama: Disentangling Marriage, Market and State’, a student seminar organised by the Krantijyoti Savitribai Phule Women’s Studies Centre at Pune University. The titles of the papers are as under:
  • Soumi Roychowdhury - The Absence of Love in the Presence of Dating: An intrinsic study amongst the Indian youth on the relationship of physical appearance, dating, and love
  • Harshavardhan Sushant - The globalized Indian wedding: A study of the effects of globalization, on Indian wedding rituals
• Four SSLA students presented their academic papers at a national level student conference on Contemporary Social Issues, organized by Somaiya College in Mumbai. The titles of the papers are as under:
  • Sanjana Rastogi - Transnational Terrorism and Digital Media
  • Palak Sharma - Interest in Buddhist Economics
  • Anamika Das - Divide of the Moment - Digital Divide towards Gaining Autonomy and Equality in India
  • Malavika Ravi - The Concept of Consent in Human Trafficking: re-examining Consent in Prostitution
• Harshvardhan Sushant (Batch 2013-2017)
  • Participated as a delegate in Distilled Images, an international haiku conference. Date: 13th - 14th September 2014. Organized by SIES College of Arts, Science, and Commerce, and IN Haiku. Read more
  • Awarded a research scholarship to present my paper in the College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences, DePaul University, Chicago. Scholarship award date: 6th September 2015. Read more
  • Presented a paper at Chikitsa 2016, a national seminar for students where undergraduates, postgraduates and research scholars were invited to present their papers on the theme ‘Shaadi Ka Panchnama: Disentangling Marriage, Market and State’ . Date: The conference was held on 8th and 9th March 2016. Organized by: Krantijyoti Savitribai Phule Women’s Studies Centre (KSPWSC) in Savitribai Phule Pune University (formerly, University of Pune). Read more
  • Presented a paper at the 'Future of Liberal Arts and Science Education' international conference. Date: 16th - 18th May 2016. Organized by: SSLA and SIU . Read more
  • Presented a paper at the 'Transforming India 2030: Strategies for Sustainable Development Goals' international conference. Date: 15th - 17th February 2017. Organized by: Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, SIU. Read more
• Sana Vaidya presented a paper the FoHSS conference on Sustainable Development. The paper was a faculty and student collaboration with Dr Shweta Sinha Deshpande, Sulakshana Sen, Ananya Gouthi Sana herself.
• Hana Masood did an internship last summer with an organization called Krityanand UNESCO Club and wrote a research paper for them. Read more
• Nikita Anil Kumar along with Srushti Borkar presented a paper titled ' Indian Women in Science' on 16/2/2017 at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences (FoHSS) conference that was held at Lavale. It was presented under the Education and Gender track. The paper looked at women who are studying STEM subjects as well as those already working in STEM. Common problems faced by women were described. To further this, the so talked to a few women who had jobs in the STEM fields to determine whether their experiences aligned with our research. A profile of the typical Indian woman scientist was then built. In addition, a review of the policies dealing with women in science was conducted and suggestions for improvements were made.
• Malavika Ravi has presented the following papers:
  • "The Concept of Consent in Sex Work" at Somaiya College, Mumbai (February 2016)
  • "Addressing Social Change through Online Media" at IASE, Pune University (February 2017)
  • "Sex Trafficking Legislation and the Role of Neoliberalism" at Krantijyoti Savitribai Phule Women's Studies Centre, Pune University (Accepted, conference scheduled for April 2017)

  Malavika presented at a conference on her paper titled "Addressing social change through online media". The conference was organized by the Institute of Advanced English Studies, affiliated to Pune University. The paper is due for publication soon. Read more

• Alpana Nadagouda represented SSLA at the International Conference of Language, Literature and Culture. It was organised by the Institute of Advanced Studies English, affiliated by Savitribai Phule Pune University. Read more

  Her paper, 'The Impact of Mobile Media on Consumer Behaviour and Mobile Marketing Strategies' was accepted and thus, she was invited to present it. Alpana has received a certificate for the same. Additionally, her paper will be published.