Dr Kaustuv Kanti Bandyopadhyay is a Director of Participatory Research in Asia (PRIA) and the Head of the PRIA International Academy (PIA). Kaustuv leads PRIA’s strategic programming and nurtures partnerships nationally and globally. For more than 30 years, he has worked with universities and non-profits. His expertise in citizen participation in local governance and social accountability is globally recognised. He has extensively worked on sustainable urbanisation and resilience over the decades. He has enormously strengthened the non-profit ecosystem by providing training and advisory services on organisation development, strategic planning, participatory planning, monitoring and impact evaluation.
A leading participatory researcher and capacity-building practitioner in Asia and elsewhere, Kaustuv has worked in several countries. Currently, he is a Co-Coordinator of Asia Democracy Research Networks (ADRN) based in Seoul, South Korea and a Governing Council member of the Asia Democracy Network (ADN) based in Seoul, South Korea and Bangkok, Thailand. He has also served as the Global Coordinator and Executive Member of LogoLink – a global network on citizen participation and local governance. He also managed the Global Secretariat of the International Forum on Capacity Building (IFCB). He has (co)authored several books, articles, manuals, monographs and other publications, contributing to knowledge-building on urban governance, civil society and democracy in the Asian context. He holds a PhD in anthropology from his work with the Parhaiya tribes of Chotanagpur (Jharkhand) in India.