Indian Institute of Science

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Indian Institute of Science
Type Public
Established 1909[1]
Director Anurag Kumar[2]
Location
Bangalore
,
Karnataka
,
India
Campus Urban
Founder Jamsetji Tata
Website www.iisc.ernet.in
Logo for Indian Institute of Science

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Indian Institute of Science (IISc) is a public university for scientific research and higher education located in Bangalore, India. Established in 1909 with active support from Jamsetji Tata it is also locally known as the "Tata Institute".[3] It acquired the status of a Deemed University in 1958. IISc is widely regarded as India's finest institution in its field,[4][5][6][7][8] and has been ranked at number 11 and 18 worldwide (and ranked 3rd and 6th in Asia) when considering the criteria of Citations per Faculty in 2014 and 2015 respectively.[5][9] IISc was the first Indian institute to feature on Times Higher Education World University Rankings for engineering and technology in the year 2015-16 at 99th position.[10][11][12] IISc has been ranked number 1 and 4 in the BRICS and Asian region respectively while considering the criteria of Papers per Faculty in 2015.[8][13] IISc has also been ranked 6th in the criteria of research by the Times Higher Education Rankings for the BRICS & Emerging Economies Rankings 2016[14] IISc has made significant contribution to advanced computing, space, and nuclear technologies.

History

Directors[15]
Jamshedji Tata, founder

After an accidental meeting between Jamsedji N. Tata and Swami Vivekananda on a ship in 1893 where they discussed Tata's plan of bringing the steel industry to India, Tata wrote to Vivekananda five years later "I trust, you remember me as a fellow-traveller on your voyage from Japan to Chicago. I very much recall at this moment your views on the growth of the ascetic spirit in India... I recall these ideas in connection with my scheme of Research Institute of Science for India, of which you have doubtless heard or read."[19][20]

Impressed by Vivekananda's views on science and leadership abilities, Tata wanted him to guide his campaign. Vivekananda endorsed the project with enthusiasm, and Tata, with the aim of advancing the scientific capabilities of the country, constituted a Provisional Committee to prepare a plan for setting up of an Institute of research and higher education. The committee presented a draft proposal to Lord Curzon on 31 December 1898.[21] Subsequently, Prof. Sir William Ramsay, a Nobel Laureate, was called on to propose a suitable place for such an institution who suggested Bangalore as the best location.

The land and other facilities for the institution were donated by H.H. Sir Krishnaraja Wodeyar IV, the Maharaja of Mysore (a Princely State now called State of Karnataka), and Tata himself. The Maharaja donated about 371 acres (1.50 km2)[22] of land. Tata gave several buildings towards the creation of IISc.[23]

The constitution of the Institute was approved by the Viceroy, Lord Minto, and the necessary Vesting Order to enable it to function was signed on 27 May 1909.[24] Early in 1911, the Maharaja of Mysore laid the foundation stone of the Institute, and on 24 July, the first batch of students were admitted in the Departments of General and Applied Chemistry under Norman Rudolf and Electro-Technology under Alferd Hay. Within two months, the Department of Organic Chemistry was opened. With the establishment of the University Grants Commission in 1956, the Institute came under its purview as a deemed university.

At the time of the inception of IISc in 1909, Morris Travers, Sir William Ramsay's co-worker in the discovery of the noble gases, became its first Director. For Travers, this was a natural continuation of his work on the Institute, since he had played a role in its founding. The first Indian Director was the Nobel Laureate Sir C.V. Raman. Raman was the Indian Science-based Nobel Laureate.[24] The current Director is Anurag Kumar.

The Institute was the first to introduce masters programmes in engineering. It has also started integrated Ph.D. programmes in Biological, Chemical, Physical and Mathematical Sciences for science graduates.[21]

Campus

The IISc campus is located in North about 4 kilometers from the Bangalore City Railway Station and bus stand on the way to Yeshwantpur. The Institute is about 35 kilometres from new Kempegowda International Airport. A number of other research institutes viz. Raman Research Institute, Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), Wood Research Institute and Central Power Research Institute (CPRI) are close to IISc. Most of these institutes are connected to IISc by a regular shuttle service.[25]

The campus houses more than 40 departments marked by routes such as the Gulmohar Marg, the Mahogany Marg, the Badami Marg, the Tala Marg, the Ashoka Marg, the Nilgiri Marg, the Silver Oak Marg, the Amra Marg and the Arjuna Marg. The Institute is fully residential and spreads over 400 acres of land situated in the heart of Bangalore city.[26] The campus features six canteens (cafeterias), a gymkhana (gymnasium and sports complex), a football and a cricket ground, four dining messes (halls), one multicuisine family restaurant, nine men's and five women's hostels (dormitories), an air strip, a library, two shopping centers and residence areas for faculties and other staff members, besides other amenities.

The IISc campus harbors both exotic and indigenous plant species with about 110 species of woody plants.[27] The roads on the campus are named after the dominant avenue tree species.[28]

Main building

Sheeju iisc.jpg
Inscription
Inside IISc

The architecture -of the main building, which today houses the administration and the prestigious Faculty Hall, is in classical style, carried out in a grey handsome tower. In front of it stands the work of Gilbert Bayes, a noble monument erected in memory of J. N. Tata. At its feet is an inscription which will serve to remind future generations of the generosity of Jamsetji Tata and the persistence with which he worked for the welfare of India. The building, as one of the prominent landmarks of Bangalore, was designed by C. F. Stevens and Company of Bombay in 1912 - 13.[29]

The buildings for the metallurgy and aerospace department were designed by the German architect Otto Königsberger in the 1940s.[30]

Library

Apart from the main library, the Institute also has independent departmental libraries. The library moved into the present premises in January 1965, built out of grants provided by University Grants Commission (UGC), in commemoration of the golden jubilee celebrations of the Institute in 1959. In 1995, the library was renamed as "J. R. D. Tata Memorial Library". The National Board for Higher Mathematics (NBHM) has recognised this library as Regional Center for Mathematics for the south region and continued to award a special grant towards subscription of Journals in Mathematics.

The annual budget of the library is over Rs. 100 million [31] (almost US$2,500,000) of which subscription towards periodicals alone is about Rs. 90 million. The library currently receives over 1,734 periodical titles, of which 1381 are subscribed, while the remaining titles are received as gratis or on an exchange basis. About 600 titles are accessible through the library subscription. In addition, over 10,000 journals are accessible online, thanks to INDEST subscription. The total holdings of the library exceed 411,000 documents.

Central computing facility

The Computer Centre, established in 1970 as a central computing facility, became Supercomputer Education and Research Centre (SERC) in 1990 to provide state-of-the-art computing facility to the faculty and students of the Institute. SERC is created and fully funded by the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) to commemorate the platinum jubilee of the Institute. It has the 6th fastest supercomputer in India.[32]

Apart from functioning as a central computing facility of IISc, the SERC is engaged in education and research programs in areas relating to supercomputer development and application. The Centre is also involved in several sponsored research projects in collaboration with several high-profile government and private agencies.

IISc also recently procured a Cray XC40, the fastest working supercomputer in India at present.

Academics

Organisation

For academic purposes, departments and centres[33] in the Institute are broadly assigned to either the Science Faculty (Dean: Prof. S. Ramasesha) or the Engineering Faculty (Dean: M. Narasimha Murty). For administrative purposes (such as faculty recruitment, assessment and promotion), departments and centres are classified into six divisions, each headed by a Chairperson.

Divisions[34]

  • Division of Biological Sciences (headed by Prof. D.N. Rao)
  • Division of Chemical Sciences (headed by Prof. S. Ramakrishnan)
  • Division of Electrical Sciences (headed by Prof. Prof. Y Narahari)
  • Division of Interdisciplinary Research (headed by Prof. Govindan Rangarajan)
  • Division of Mathematical & Physical Sciences (headed by Prof. Rahul Pandit)
  • Division of Mechanical Sciences (headed by Prof. Vikram Jayaram)

Each department or centre, under these divisions, is administered by a Chairperson.

The following centres are directly under the director (without a divisional chairman):[33]

Degrees

Degrees offered by the institute may be broadly classified into two categories: Degrees by Research (PhD, integrated PhD, BS (core science and interdisciplinary topics) and MS (Engg.)), and degrees by coursework (ME/MTech/M.Mgt/MDes).

Research programs leading to M.Sc (Engg)/PhD degrees are the main thrust in many departments.[24] The program has a limited amount of course work, essentially to prepare the student to carry out the research, but the main emphasis is on the thesis work.[35][36][37] The annual intake of research students is approximately 250 with several candidates sponsored from educational institutions and industries.[38] The research students constitute the largest group (50%) on the campus.[38]

The Integrated PhD program is designed to offer exciting opportunities to motivated and talented BSc/BE graduates with a keen sense of scientific inquiry for pursuing advanced research in frontier areas of Biological, Chemical and Physical Sciences, leading to the Ph. D. degree of the Institute.

Two-year programs leading to the ME/MTech/MSc (Engg) degree by course work are available in almost all engineering departments. One needs to score a very high percentile in GATE (GATE) to get admission into these programs. A unique feature of the ME/MTech/MS (Engg) programs at the institute is the credit system which allows students to tailor the courses to suit their aptitude, interest and research requirements. Most ME/MTech programs have a set of hard core courses specified as an essential requirement whereas students can take rest of the credits from many courses available in their parent or other departments and also do a dissertation work on the topic of their choice. These courses attract highly motivated accomplished students, in addition to several sponsored candidates from R&D labs/industries and also from educational institutions under the Quality Improvement Programme (QIP).

The Department of Management Studies, one of the oldest management schools in the country (established in 1948), offers an M.Mgt program exclusively for engineering graduates. The Center for Product Design and Manufacturing, CPDM,[39] offers the Master of Design course. Started in 1996, the MDes program is a two-year, full-time post-graduate program.

Bachelor of Science (Research) Program is a new program offered from 2011. It is designed to serve as a launching pad for research and doctoral studies in science and technology.[40] Major disciplines currently offered include Biology, Chemistry, Environmental Science, Materials, Mathematics and Physics. Admissions are based on scores from the following national examinations: KVPY-SA, KVPY-SB, KVPY-SX/SB+2, JEE (Mains and Advanced), AIPMT.[41]

Undergraduate Programme

An Undergraduate program was conceived, for students who had completed Class XII, during the Centenary Celebrations in 2009. The first batch of students was admitted in 2011. The program offers a four-year Bachelor of Science (Research) course in six disciplines, namely Biology, Chemistry, Environmental Science, Material Science, Mathematics and Physics. The course aims at exposing the students to the inter-disciplinary nature in which scientific research is done in many upcoming fields, and comes at a time when the importance of science education at the undergraduate level is emphasised and several incentives are provided by the Government to promote the same.[42][43]

The coursework reduces the five-year course work of 3+2 bachelor's + master's to four years; it also makes the graduates eligible to apply for graduate schools abroad, which require 16 years of education before entering a graduate school. Back home, Bachelor of Science (Research) graduates are eligible to apply for CSIR-NET, a national level examination for securing admission into Ph.D. program into various universities including IISc.

Apart from an intensive training in sciences, courses in Engineering and Humanities are prescribed to empower the student with technical skills required for a scientist, to appreciate the social context as well as constraints of doing science.[44] The science and engineering courses are offered by the respective departments at the Institute; the humanities course is offered by the Centre for Contemporary Studies (CCS) at IISc in collaboration with the Centre for Study of Culture and Society (CSCS), Bangalore.

Students enrolled in the program take courses in Biology, Chemistry, Engineering, Humanities, Mathematics and Physics for three semesters (1-3) which are common and compulsory to all. In the next four semesters (4-7), they choose a major discipline of study and take a handful of other science courses and a stipulated number of engineering and humanities courses. The last semester is devoted to a final project. Besides, all the students, either KVPY or DST-Inspire scholars, spend a couple of months in various research institutes across the country exploring a topic or a research problem of their interest.[45][46]

Rankings

Research University rankings
General – international
ARWU[48] 301-400 [47]
QS (World)[49] 147 (18 and 6 in worldwide and Asia respectively when considering "Citations per Faculty" in 2015)[9]
General – India
Careers360[50] 1
Medical - India
Business – India

IISc is ranked 147 globally in QS World Rankings of top universities in 2015.[51] IISc has also been ranked 6th in the criteria of research by the Times Higher Education Rankings for the BRICS & Emerging Economies Rankings 2016.[52] IISc was ranked 18th in the world and 6th in Asia when considering the criteria "Citations per Faculty" in 2015.[9] IISc has been ranked number 4 in Asia during 2015 rankings when considering the criteria of Papers per Faculty.[8] IISc was ranked 11 in the world and 3 in Asia by QS World University Rankings 2014/15 when considering "Citations per Faculty".[5] This was an improvement from 2013 when it was ranked 24 in the world and 4 in Asia by QS World University Rankings 2013 when considering "Citations per faculty".[4] IISc has an overall rank of 5 in the BRICS region in 2015.[53] It is also ranked 1 in the BRICS region when considering the criterion of "Papers per faculty" in 2015 by the same survey [13] In 2014, IISc was ranked 22 in the Global Employability University Ranking 2014.[6] In 2012, IISc was ranked 35 in the Global Employability Survey and it was the only Indian institution in that list and in 2013 in the same Global Employability Survey it was ranked 23.[7] IISc was ranked 39 in Materials Science, 59 in Chemistry, 50–100 in Engineering/Technology and Computer Science in the QS World University Rankings 2012–2013. it was also ranked 137 in Natural Sciences and 167 in Life Sciences, with no overall ranking.[54] In 2011, IISc was the only Indian university ranked in the top 500 by the Academic Ranking of World Universities, at 301-400th place overall. IISc managed to maintain its overall ranking through the 2012 and 2013 rankings. In 2013, it ranked 43rd in Chemistry and 51-75 in Computer Science.[48] Also, according Times Higher Education World Reputation Rankings 2011, IISc stood somewhere around 91-100. According to The India Reputation Rankings, Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore, is in the first position.

IISc is one of the two educational institutes in India which have been listed in Quacquarelli Symonds’(QS) list of top 200 universities globally in 2015.[51] The other one is IIT Delhi.[55] As per the Times Higher Education (THE)-2015 ranking, IISc is the best institute of India and has been placed in 251-300 category in world university ranking, in 91-100 category for world reputation ranking, 37th position in Asia University ranking and ranked 25th in BRICS emerging economies[56] and also ranked No. 1 in Careers 360 (Magazine) ranking of top universities in India 2015.[50]

Admissions

Admission into IISc is highly competitive. Usually only the top 0.01 percent candidates qualifying the GATE examination are able to clear the cutoff for ME/M.Tech admissions. Depending on the department and the number of students, the cutoff can get much higher. Admission to research programmes of the Institute, both Ph.D and M.Sc (Engg), is based on career analysis and (possibly) multiple rounds of technical interviews in the campus. Candidates are called for interviews based on the entrance test of the Institute or GATE or any other test recognised by the Institute (which depends on the choice of department and specialization). For course oriented degrees – ME and M.Tech. – the admission is through the GATE examination conducted every year. For research oriented degree – Master of Science which is similar to MS with Thesis—the admission is through the GATE.[57] For Master of Management (M.Mgt), which has a ceiling strength of only 25 seats across India, the admission is through CAT (Common Admission Test). Admission to MDes is through the GATE or the CEED (Common Entrance Examination for Design). Bachelor of Science graduates can get admission to IISC through the JAM exam.[58]

Academic and industrial collaborations

IISc collaborates with various government organisations like DRDO, ISRO, Bharat Electronics Limited, Aeronautical Development Agency, National Aerospace Laboratories, CSIR, Department of IT (Government of India). IISc also works in collaboration with private industry and research labs like Centre for Development of Advanced Computing, Google Inc, General Motors, Microsoft Research, IBM Research, Boeing , Robert Bosch Foundation and also with Pratt & Whitney. Few organisations have been incubated by Society for Innovation and Development (SID) in the campus, viz Morphing Machines, SandI , while Gamma Porite is currently under incubation. IISc actively promotes and supports ventures by faculty, students and alumni. Strand Life Sciences, Ittiam are some success stories of this initiative.

Student Activities

Pravega is the annual science, technology and cultural festival of Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore. Started in 2013 by the undergraduates of IISc, the fest advertises itself as an eclectic blend of science, technology and culture packed into three January days.

Pravega 2014 featured various scientific, technological and cultural competitions, Gaming events, music shows, lectures, video conferences, exhibitions, demonstrations and workshops. The second edition, held from 29 January to 1 February 2015, built on these events and also introduced new and unique events to the mix. Events such as Whodunnit and the Literary Decathlon are some such newly introduced competitions.

IISc being India's Premier Research Institute, the fest’s technical events revolve around cutting edge Science and Engineering. Cultural events involve competitions such as Battle of Bands (prelims for which were held in four cities last year) and Lasya (a dance competition).

Over 500 colleges from across India including the IITs, NITs and IISERs are invited every year to attend this festival. Pravega is usually held on the fourth weekend of January, in the IISc Campus, Bangalore.

Many scientific workshops and camps, such as Vijyoshi (National Science Camp) for secondary school and undergraduate students, are hosted by IISc.

December 2005 Terror attack

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Main article: 2005 Indian Institute of Science shooting

On December 28th, 2005 Pakistan based terror outfits attacked Indian Institute of Science. Professor from IIT Delhi Munish Chandra Puri died in the attack.[59][60]

Notable People

Unlike most IIT alumni, most IISc-ians have typically stayed on in India or returned home to work in India.[61]

Two former directors, C. V. Raman and C. N. R. Rao, have been awarded India's highest civilian honour Bharat Ratna. Four former directors, Sir A. G. Bourne, Sir Martin O. Forster, C. V. Raman and J. C. Ghosh, have been knighted. IISc has produced CEOs of many major organisations in India and abroad, and among the alumni are two Rhodes Scholars, several Fellows of the Royal Society, and thousands of members of Indian and foreign Academy of Sciences. Hundreds of IISc faculty members have also received the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for Science and Technology awarded to Indians who have made outstanding contributions under 45 years of age. In spite of these achievements, no alumnus or serving faculty member of IISc has won either a Nobel Prize or a Fields Medal, although C. V. Raman did win a Nobel Prize before becoming the Institute's first Indian director.

Notable Faculty

Notable Alumni

See also

References

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  30. ↑ Rachel Lee (2012) Constructing a Shared Vision: Otto Koenigsberger and Tata & Sons. ABE Journal 2
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External links

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