Prof. D. P. Agrawal is the Chairman of Union Public Service Commission (UPSC), New Delhi since 16th August 2008, before which he was a Member of the Union Public Service Commission.
Before the present position, Prof. Agrawal was the Founder-Director of the Indian Institute of Information Technology and Management (IIITM), Gwalior. He was responsible for the conceptualisation, design, and construction of the Institute campus from ground zero. He was also responsible for development and design of new academic programmes with dynamic curriculum, creation of new models of education delivery and assessment, encompassing peer learning, mentoring, self-learning, learning to learn and continuous evaluation, and linkages/collaboration with industries and universities abroad.
Prof. Agrawal started his career as a faculty in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, IIT Delhi in 1975. In 1994, from being a Professor and Dean at IIT Delhi, he took over as the Joint Educational Adviser (Technical) in the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD), Government of India. While at the Ministry, he initiated policies for the growth of quality technical education and was instrumental in conceptualising several new institutions in the emerging paradigm of Information Technology. He has contributed to the development of Centres for Excellence in higher technical and polytechnic education. As the National Project Director of the World Bank, he assisted Technician Education Projects. The implementation strategies adopted by him created, for the first time, very high participation of women (30%) in technician education. The outcomes of these projects were rated highly by the World Bank which disseminated the implementation strategies adopted here as a model for other countries.
Through his consistent policy initiatives, implementation and monitoring systems, the Indo-UK REC’s Project created a sense of great belief in the strength of the RECs and the Project resulted in a new level of confidence. This coupled with the inputs from the Centre of Excellence scheme, which was also implemented in his guidance later led to their becoming National Institutes of Technology.
Prof. Agrawal was the Managing Director of Educational Consultants India Ltd. (EdCIL), a Government of India PSU, where he brought about major changes in the organisational work culture including decentralised decision-making and transferring functional responsibilities to lower executives.
He has been very active in teaching and research throughout his career and has supervised over 100 theses including 20 Ph.D.s and published over 150 research papers covering areas of Turbo-Machinery, Fluid Dynamics, Information Technology, Management and E-Governance. His research papers have received awards in India & abroad. He has been an editorial member of many national and international journals and has been a keynote speaker at various conference sessions. He was the chair of the IT section of the Science Congress held at Lucknow. He has authored three books highlighting new areas of research in India in the areas of ethical brand positioning, demand chain management and neuro-marketing.
He attracted funds for his research projects from MHRD, AR&DB, DST and CSIR. As the British Council Visiting Fellow, he researched at Cranfield University, Cranfield, UK, and Imperial College London in 1988, 1990 and 1994. He has also lectured in Germany and Czechoslovakia.
Prof. Agarwal is a fellow/member of several professional institutions and societies in India and abroad. He has received many awards including, Eminent Engineer 2003, Engineer of the Year 2006 conferred by the Institution of Engineers, Honorary Fellowship of ISTE, 2006, Honorary D.Sc degree of Jiwaji University, Gwalior 2009, and the Honorary Fellowship of IETE in 2011.
He has shouldered many important national-level responsibilities with distinction. To mention a few: Chairman of Central Regional Committee of AICTE, Chairman/Member of Board of Governors of many technical institutes, Chairman, National Group on Technology Management, DST, Member, working groups for Planning Commission on technical education, Member IT Task Force for MP Government; Member academic councils of technical colleges, Member Secretary of High power committee to Review REC’s and setting institute for computer and allied sciences for GOI and Institute for Life sciences for MP government, Member AR&DB and the Member of turbomachinery committee.
He has led Government of India delegations to the United States of America, Australia, Germany, New Zealand and Canada.
After graduating in Mechanical Engineering with Honours from Aligarh Muslim University in 1970, Prof. Agarwal obtained M.Tech and Ph.D. degrees from IIT Delhi in 1972 and 1978 respectively.
He is a highly respected public speaker and has articulated issues of innovation, quality education, public services, and Information Technology for the development of the common man.