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IRO Observatory

About Us

India trains its International Relations graduates, then leaves them to find the rest alone.

The IR Observatory exists to close that gap. The resources, the analysis, the skills and the people, gathered in one place.

Our Story

An unowned problem.

Not a hard one. Just one nobody had taken responsibility for.

The information that decides a career in this field is scattered, and almost none of it sits where a student would think to look.

Fellowship deadlines circulate in private groups. The skills that research jobs actually test, meaning open source investigation, policy writing and working with primary documents, are rarely on a syllabus. And the people who would be your collaborators sit in different universities with no reason to find each other.

None of that is a hard problem. It is an unowned one. We are trying to own it: collect the resources, publish the analysis, teach the skills, and put the people in the same room.

We are early, and building in the open. Most of what this site describes is being made now.

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Mission & Vision

Where this is going.

One sentence each. If it needs a paragraph, it is not a mission.

Mission

To build India's leading applied International Relations ecosystem by connecting knowledge, opportunities, skills and community.

Vision

Over five years, to become the primary gateway for International Relations in India, where anyone interested in the field starts and keeps returning throughout their career.

What We Do

Three jobs, done properly.

Everything else we build sits on top of these.

  1. 01

    Curate

    A checked, categorised library of the resources that actually matter, from think tanks and journals to satellite imagery and OSINT tooling.

  2. 02

    Publish

    Research briefs, policy notes and explainers, including edited work by students who have not been published before.

  3. 03

    Connect

    A community across Indian universities and institutions, with discussion groups, book clubs and simulations.

FAQs

Questions we get asked.

Something missing? Write to us and we will add it here.

Who is IRO for?
Undergraduates deciding whether to study International Relations, postgraduates looking for funding and publication routes, doctoral researchers looking for collaborators, and working professionals in policy, defence, journalism and development. The resources are labelled by level so you can find what fits.
Does it cost anything?
The resource library, publications, community and newsletter are free. The cohort programme and bootcamps will be paid, with concessional rates for students. Nothing is running yet.
Do I need to study International Relations formally to join?
No. A good share of applied IR work is done by people who came in from economics, law, journalism, engineering and the armed forces.
How is the resource library curated?
Every entry is checked by hand before it goes in, and carries a description, category, tags, country, difficulty level and a note on who it suits. We would rather have a small library that is accurate than a large one that is not.
Can I contribute?
Yes. We publish student writing, take resource suggestions, and need people to run regional chapters and moderate discussion groups. Write to us.
Are the university rankings independent?
Yes, and they are also incomplete. The methodology is published on the rankings page, and the data is verified institution by institution before any position is assigned. We will not publish a ranking we cannot defend.

Newsletter

Weekly IR Roundup, job alerts and fellowship alerts.

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