Muttukrishna Sarvananthan has undertaken incisive, insightful, and foresighted policy research during the past twenty-two years (1999-2021) of post-doctoral professional research career http://orcid.org/0000-0001-6443-0358 (Research Impact Metrics h-index 11, i10-index 14 as of August 2021 https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=CYGaCwQAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=sra). Muttukrishna Sarvananthan has undertaken impactful peer reviewed research, public dissemination in peer reviewed international and regional journals, and public intellectual advocacy through the mass media (both print and electronic) in Sri Lanka and abroad.

A total of 49 peer-reviewed scholarly publications, inter alia, have been the output during the twenty-eight-year period between 1994 and 2021, which includes 34 journal articles (i.e.70%), 8 book chapters (16%), and 7 books/monographs (14%). His academic publications have been consistent/regular; resulting in 2 publications per year, on average, during the twenty-two-year period after earning his PhD (1999-2021). Out of the total of 49 publications, 40 are sole author publications (i.e.82%). His articles have been published in the journals of leading international academic publishers such as the Routledge (Taylor & Francis Group, UK), SAGE Publications (USA/India), Springer (Germany), and Universities such as the University of Hawaii (USA), University of Leiden (Netherlands)/University of Massachusetts (USA), and University of Warwick (UK). He has also been a peer reviewer of 36 articles (to date) submitted to journals published by leading international academic publishers such as Elsevier (Netherlands), Oxford University Press (UK), Routledge (Taylor & Francis Group, UK), SAGE Publications (USA/India), and John Wiley (USA).       

Muttukrishna Sarvananthan’s policy research paper to resolve the enduring fishing disputes between Sri Lanka and India https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09733159.2018.1564556 appears to have elicited a policy responses by the Government of Sri Lanka in 2021 http://www.dailymirror.lk/caption_story/Project-kicks-off-to-culture-artificial-reef-in-Northern-waters/110-213919, Central Government of India, and the State Government of Tamil Nadu in February 2019. https://www.orfonline.org/research/south-asia-weekly-report-volume-xii-issue-25-52282/  https://www.orfonline.org/research/south-asia-weekly-report-volume-xii-issue-12-49259/

He foresaw the electoral defeat of the President Rajapaksa in June 2014 due to the lack of economic peace dividend in the conflict-affected provinces and beyond, which was realised in January 2015. http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10708-015-9637-3  https://rdcu.be/2s1n

His survey results contested the causes of boat migration (to Australia from Sri Lanka) attributed by an Australian refugee advocate in 2013 and the Australian Government toughened its policy on boat migration in the same year. http://www.epw.in/discussion/boat-migration-australia.html-0

He exposed and argued the case against military enterprises in Northern Sri Lanka in 2010 and the military expenditure in the Northern Provincial economy was cut-back to second place as a proportion of the provincial economy for the first time in decades in 2012. http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09584935.2011.565313

He logically predicted, backed-up by empirical evidence, the demise of the LTTE in 2006 and it happened in 2009. http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01436590701507628#.U8nX9kDm5eY

He proposed a cap on the annual Government Budget deficit in 2001-2002 and the Fiscal (Management) Responsibility Act was enacted in 2003. http://www.epw.in/commentary/sri-lanka-budget-2001-social-agenda-vs-military-development.html

He logically argued, backed-up by empirical evidence, the case for free trade between India and Sri Lanka in 1993 and the Governments of India and Sri Lanka inked a bilateral Free Trade Agreement (albeit partial) in 1998 that came into operation in 2000. http://www.epw.in/special-articles/contraband-trade-and-unofficial-capital-transfers-between-sri-lanka-and-india.html

Muttukrishna Sarvananthan hails from Point Pedro and a Development Economist by profession. He is the Founder and Principal Researcher of the Point Pedro Institute of Development, Point Pedro, Northern Province, Sri Lanka, which he founded in 2004. He is the foremost authority on the Economies of the Eastern and Northern Provinces of Sri Lanka. 

Muttukrishna Sarvananthan is personally a Ceylonese (known as Sri Lanka since 1972) by birth and Sri Lankan by citizenship and domicile; but professionally, and in terms of work ethic, a British, having been trained as a Development Economist there during the course of successfully completing three postgraduate degrees in England and Wales between 1987 and 1999.      

He has worked as a Consultant to the Ministry of Finance and Planning (Sri Lanka), various private research institutions and international consultancy firms (e.g. Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations – ICRIER, Oxford Analytica, and Rand Corporation), Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), German International Cooperation (GIZ, formerly known as GTZ), International Labour Organisation (ILO), United Nations Development Programme (UNDP - both the country office and the Asia Pacific Regional Centre Colombo), and the World Bank (IBRD) in Sri Lanka undertaking field survey-based and desk-based applied empirical research studies on contemporary economic and social issues (civil conflict, conflict/dispute resolution, gender and development, international trade, labour market, local/regional economic development, macro-economy, new sources of international development finance, peace, poverty, terrorism, etc.) confronting Sri Lanka and beyond, field evaluations of agriculture, small enterprise, governance, peace-building, and post-disaster projects in Sri Lanka, post-conflict/post-disaster needs assessments in Sri Lanka, and reviews of fiscal and monetary transparency in Sri Lanka. He has been an intern at the World Bank headquarters in Washington, D.C. in 1996 as well.

He is currently a co-recipient of The British Academy award under its Humanities and Social Sciences Tackling Global Challenges Programme running from January 2021 to January 2023, along with scholars at the University of Edinburgh (Scotland, UK), University of Gothenburg (Sweden), Jawaharlal Nehru University (New Delhi, India), and Tata Institute for Social Sciences (Mumbai, India) to undertake a research study titled COVID-19 and the South Asian State: A Cross-National and Cross-Regional Comparison. Moreover, he has undertaken collaborative survey-based research with the University of Mannheim (2018) and University of Heidelberg (2009) in Germany, Rand Corporation in California (USA) (2017-2018), and the Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations (ICRIER) in New Delhi (India) (2000-2002).   

Muttukrishna Sarvananthan is periodically consulted by diplomats at the Embassy or High Commission of Australia, Canada, France, Germany, India, Japan, Norway, United Kingdom, and the United States of America in Sri Lanka, and visiting government officials from the foregoing countries to Sri Lanka, about the economic, political, and social situation in the Eastern and Northern Provinces of Sri Lanka. Expert opinion on the political and security ground situation in Sri Lanka is intermittently sought by independent asylum/refugee arbitration services in Belgium, Canada, and France in the past decade. He used to be regularly interviewed by the Tamil service (Thamil Ozai) of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) in London (which is now based in New Delhi).  

Further, he has been an academic tutor, supervisor, and guest lecturer on conflict resolution and security studies for the United Nations University for Peace (2005-2008) and the University of Bradford (2005/6) respectively in Sri Lanka. Furthermore, Muttukrishna Sarvananthan has been an external examiner of Ph.D. theses on Entrepreneurship in the Northern Province of Sri Lanka submitted to the University of New South Wales in Canberra in 2015 and on the Shadow Economy in Sri Lanka submitted to the Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi in 2006.

Besides, he was also a member of the international editorial board of the Contemporary South Asia journal published by Routledge from 2004 until December 31, 2016. Moreover, he has been a peer reviewer of 36 articles (to date) submitted to Contemporary South Asia (Routledge) (2015, 2014 (2), 2013, 2009, 2008 (2), 2007, 2006, 2004 (3), 2003), Democracy and Security (Routledge) (2018), Disasters (John Wiley) (2007), Development in Practice (Routledge) (2016), International Feminist Journal of Politics (Routledge) (2019, 2018), International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction (Elsevier) (2021 (2), 2020), International Studies Quarterly (Oxford University Press) (2020), Millennial Asia (SAGE) (2020), South Asian Journal of Human Resources Management (SAGE) (2021 (2), 2020 (2)), South Asian Survey (SAGE) (2021 (2), 2020, 2018), The International Journal of Transitional Justice (2021), Third World Quarterly (Routledge) (2013), and World Development (Elsevier) (2021, 2017, 2015) journals during 2003-2021.

Muttukrishna Sarvananthan was an Endeavour Research Fellow at the Global Terrorism Research Centre (GTReC) of the Monash University in Melbourne from September 2011 to February 2012, and a Fulbright Visiting Research Scholar at the Elliott School of International Affairs, George Washington University in Washington, D.C. from October 2008 to July 2009. He was a participant in the International Visitor Leadership Program on ‘Tamil Diaspora – Post Conflict Reconciliation’ organized by the United States Department of State from August 06–24, 2012 in the United States of America.      

He has authored books titled Economy of the Conflict Region: from economic embargo to economic repression (2007&2008), People’s Verdict on Tsunami Recovery in Sri Lanka (2007), Children of War: Aspirations and Opportunities (2007) ( which was adjudged  the best research submission in 2008 by the Sri Lanka Economic Association), An Assessment of Contraband Trade and Capital between India and Sri Lanka (2001), Impact of Civil Conflict on Women in Traditional Tamil Society (co-author) (1995), and edited Economic Reforms in Sri Lanka: post-1977 period (2005).

Further, he has published articles on Indo-Sri Lanka trade, poverty and income inequality, civil war and the economy, countering violent extremism, economic policies and strategies, gender and development, livelihoods, rights-based development, South Asian regional economic integration, and on terrorism and radicalisation in Conflict Trends (Durban) (2009), Contemporary South Asia (Routledge) (2011, 2008, 2004, 2002, 1999), Development in Practice (Routledge) (2017), Economic and Political Weekly (India) (2005, 2003 (2), 2001, 1994), Faultlines: Writings on Conflict and Resolution (New Delhi) (2004), GeoJournal (Springer) (2016), Global Change, Peace & Security (book review) (Routledge) (2021), Indian Journal of Regional Science (Kolkata) (2009, 2004), Journal of Contemporary Asia (Routledge) (2001), Journal of Developing Societies (Sage) (2017), Maritime Affairs (Routledge)  (2018), Perspectives on Terrorism (University of Leiden and University of Massachusetts-Lowell) (2018), South Asia Economic Journal (SAGE) (2004), South Asian Journal of Human Resources Management (SAGE) (2015), South Asian Survey (SAGE) (2012), Sri Lanka Economic Journal (1995), Sri Lanka Journal of Social Sciences (1999), The Journal of Law, Social Justice & Global Development (University of Warwick) (2020), and the Third World Quarterly (Routledge) (2007). (Research Impact Metrics h-index 11 i10-index 14 as of August 2021 https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=CYGaCwQAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=sra) His research note titled “Recovering from the Tsunami: People’s Experiences in Sri Lanka” in Contemporary South Asia, Vol.16 No.3, September 2008 was amongst the top twenty articles downloaded from the publisher’s own portal during 2008.

Muttukrishna Sarvananthan earned a Doctorate in Development Economics at the Centre for Development Studies, University of Wales, Swansea in 1999, Master of Science in Development Planning and Administration at the Department of Social Policy and Social Planning, University of Bristol in 1991, Master of Science (Economics) in Economic Development at the Department of Economics, University of Salford in 1989, and Bachelor of Arts (Honours) in Economics at the Kirori Mal College, University of Delhi in 1986. Besides, he has successfully completed Teaching Skills for Graduate Tutors course at the University of Wales, Swansea in 1998.