The young and impelling in research mettle

NEW DELHI, MAY 8: Every institution aspires to become an outstanding one so as to create a brand name for itself. The typical characteristics for an institute to excel are thrust on academic talent, teaching and research. There is a determined effort to build intellectual capacity, and invest in facilities that foster learning which ultimately lead to producing excellent alumni from the institution.

It has been observed that to perform brilliantly and establish oneself in the scholastic arena, more autonomy in administering academic affairs helps remarkably well including having the freedom of offering distinguished programmes, changing the curriculum and in conducting examinations. Typically, many of such institutions are 100 years old or more like Harvard, Cambridge, Oxford, Karolinska, Peking or LMU Munich. Even in India, there are very good universities which have been in existence for about 100 years now such as IISc, Delhi University, BHU, AMU and Panjab University.

If we dig further, we also see institutions that are less than 50 years old but have crafted a name for themselves among excellent institutions and are nowhere behind the older universities. To name a few, we have the new Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs), IISERs, Amrita, TERI University in India.

Here, we attempt to highlight the unique features of some of the outstanding institutions that have come up in India during the last 30 years. Also see table that list out 15 outstanding institutions in research activities).

THE NIPERs

The National Institutes of Pharmaceutical Education and Research, seven of them at Ahmedabad, Guwahati, Hajipur, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Mohali and Raebareli (with four more coming up at Visakhapatnam, Nagpur, Jhalawar and Chhattisgarh) are all Institutes of National Importance with the objective of emerging as centres of excellence for advanced studies and research in pharmaceutical sciences. They are autonomous entities set up under the aegis of Department of Pharmaceuticals, Ministry of Chemicals and Fertilizers. All the NIPERs run research-based programmes and the mandate is to produce highly trained manpower for the domestic and global pharmaceutical industry.

NIPER Mohali

The National Institute of Pharmaceutical Education and Research (NIPER), Mohali since its inception, is engaged in cutting edge research for drug discovery, apart from being an outstanding institute for Pharmacy Education at the postgraduate level. NIPER is contributing in a major way to the generic market for the generic formulations. Clozapine and Olanzapine have been approved by USFDA for Bipolar disorders. The drugs went on generic in 2007 and 2011, respectively. The Institute is also working in the area of Development of cost-effective technologies for the production of bio-generic proteins. The curriculum of the institute has also been designed in a manner that it has an interdisciplinary approach. The institute has ten departments and fifteen different courses in various branches of pharmaceutical sciences also leading to interdisciplinary scientific field of drug research. In a short period of its existence, the institute has filed 74 patents of which 23 have been granted. It has a far higher H index as compared to other premium pharma institutes in India.

NIPER Mohali has a robust system for interaction with industry. The representatives from industry are members of Departmental Academic Advisory Committee, which help frame the syllabus of each department.

Prof. Raghuram Rao Akkinepally,  Director, NIPER Mohali talking about the institute said, "The course curriculum lays emphasis on providing NIPER students with a flavour of all branches, viz. chemistry, biology, statistics, apart from pharmaceutical sciences, at the foundation level. The students’ achievements do not make us complacent, but attest the basic soundness of our programme. Since, the pharmaceutical industry is one of the major employers of graduating students; the institute strives continuously to equip the students with the required industry skillset. In 2016-17, NIPER Mohali has received more than Rs. 1.65 crore by way of providing consultancy services to industry. Considering faculty strength of 30, this is indeed an achievement."

THE NEW IITs

The expansion of the IIT system (Total of 23 IITs up to June 2017) was inevitable in the 21st century if one looks at the demands from various stakeholders, the changing scenario of the global economy and emergence of Indian engineering sector fuelling the need for quality work force. In 2008-09 the government of India approved establishment of eight new IITs in Gandhinagar, Jodhpur, Hyderabad, Indore, Patna, Bhubaneswar, Ropar, and Mandi. In 2015-16, six new IITs in Tirupati, Palakkad, Dharwad, Bhilai, Goa and Jammu got an approval through a 2016 bill amendment in addition to ISM Dhanbad being converted to an IIT.

IIT Indore

The IIT Indore in past eight years of its existence is seen to emerge as an institute striving for excellence with relentless focus on academic rigor, research output and learner-centred innovative pedagogy and curriculum. A core competency of IIT Indore is research-driven academic programme as a crucial component of undergraduate and postgraduate teaching.

This has also led to the initiation of a formal undergraduate research scheme entitled, Promotion of Research and Innovation for Undergraduate Students. The results are now explicitly visible and reflected in its increasing publications in refereed journals, average citation, and a high ‘h-index’. The other integral part of the research ecosystem is the Innovation and Entrepreneurship Development Centre (IEDC), which engages the interested students in the process of combining innovation, initiative and entrepreneurship and as an outcome; they can have their own start-ups.

Prof. Pradeep Mathur, Director, IIT Indore said, "Our emphasis has been on cutting edge research across disciplines and departments. The Industry-Academia Conclave (IAC) is a very successful annual affair at IIT Indore which brings together industry, academics and researchers to develop collaborative research products. The institute has taken advantage of various schemes by government of India that facilitate industry-academia interface. For instance, research groups of IIT Indore have received grants under the Rashtriya Avishkar Yojana, Unnat Bharat Abhiyan, Uchhatar Avishkar yojana IMPRINT and others. Special emphasis has been on involving undergraduate students in research labs and projects. There are more external research grants and projects than total number of faculty at the institute."

THE IISERs

The Indian Institutes of Science Education and Research (IISERs) have been established by Government of India in Kolkata (2006) followed by six others at Pune, Mohali, Bhopal, Thiruvananthapuram, Tirupati and Berhampur with objectives mainly related to capacity enhancement for producing high calibre scientific manpower and commensurate necessary reforms in the institutional framework for that purpose in the field of higher education and research in basic sciences at both under graduate and post graduate level.

The IISERs are a group of premier science education and research institutes in India and is commonly referred to as the IITs of basic sciences. The IISER student selection is highly competitive, with only KVPY fellows, students in the IIT-JEE merit list, and students in the top one per cent of the respective boards are eligible to apply for BS-MS admissions.

IISER Thiruvananthapuram (IISER-TVM)

The institute is unique in the sense that it imparts quality education in modern science and prudently integrates it with research at the undergraduate level itself. Inculcating the spirit of research the BS-MS interdisciplinary curriculum is designed in such a manner that it cuts across disciplines. Admission to IISER-TVM is highly competitive even for its doctoral programme. Less than ten per cent of the PhD applicants are accepted. The current faculty-student ratio is about 1:10. The faculty members in particular, have active research interests covering a wide range in the core areas of Biology, Chemistry, Mathematics, Physics, as well as interdisciplinary streams like Biomolecules, Genomics, and Material science.

During 2015-16 quite a few recognitions were conferred on faculty members including the Ramanujan Fellowship, Kerala State Young Scientist Award, Swarnajayanthi Fellowship, DST Inspire Faculty, Welcome DBT Intermediate & Early Career Fellowships, BM Birla Science Prize in Physics, and the CRSI Bronze Medal in chemical research. In addition to 37 ongoing sponsored projects, faculty members have acquired 13 new projects worth tens of crores being funded by various agencies.

Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, Coimbatore

Amrita University has created a name for itself with its high quality teaching and research. The varsity has a consistent emphasis on international collaborations with the top universities globally and has a crystal clear focus on societally beneficial research and human values in education. Amrita University with five campuses has a wide spectrum of centers of excellence and research that foster research in frontier inter-disciplinary areas of science and technology such as nanotechnology, medical, biotechnology, wireless communications, cyber security & computational engineering, e-learning and national knowledge network, haptic technologies, green materials & energy etc.

At Amrita, researchers have created hundreds of patents on inventions and many of them are transferred to industry for further development into useful products and services including low-cost insulin pump, sensor network for landslide detection to name a few.

Dr. P. Venkat Rangan, Vice Chancellor, Amrita University said, "Some of the factors that have resulted in we being the ‘best in the class’ is our concerted thrust towards innovation and research for the betterment of society. With the limited autonomy that we have, we have created a unique, experiential learning programme, called Live-in-Labs, focusing on enabling faculty and students to study problems faced by rural villages and devise solutions addressing their local problems in energy, water, health & sanitation, environment, housing, education, etc. In the last few years, more than 200+ scientists and researchers have returned to India to contribute to the nation's development. We have provided them with the right ambience and state-of-the-art infrastructure to engage in research and innovation."

Chennai Mathematical Institute

The unique feature of Chennai Mathematical Institute (CMI) is that it gives equal emphasis on research and teaching. Most of the leading research institutions in sciences focused on research and stayed away from undergraduate education, Indian Statistical Institute and IISERs being a few exceptions. IISc Bangalore has also recently introduced a UG programme in science.

Rajeeva Karandikar, Director, CMI said, "The BSc Mathematics and Physics program equips the students not only to learn rigorous abstract mathematics, but also theoretical physics. Again this combination is not available anywhere in the country. Autonomy has played a key role in CMI reaching where it has reached. We cater to a small group of students and being able to restructure courses and curriculum at a fast pace is important. Funding is important which can lead us to admit larger number of students and thus make a bigger impact. We have had problems on this front, but what has sustained us is the support from government, mainly through Department of Atomic Energy and National Board for Higher Mathematics along with donation from corporates and individuals.”

CMI conducts BSc programmes in Mathematics and Computer Science as well as Mathematics and Physics. It has MSc programmes in Mathematics, Applications of Mathematics and Computer Science. The research thrust however is on Mathematics, Computer Science and Physics. In Mathematics, research areas are Algebra, Differential Equations, Geometry, Probability & Statistics and Financial Mathematics & Analytics. In Computer Science, the key research domain are formal methods in the specification and verification of Software Systems, Design & Analysis of Algorithms, Computational Complexity Theory and Computer Security. In Physics, the research carried out is mainly in Gravitation, Quantum Field Theory, String Theory and Mathematical Physics.

The Indian Institute of Space Science and Technology (IIST), Thiruvananthapuram

The IIST, Thiruvananthapuram, established by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is also the first university in Asia established solely dedicated to the study and research of the outer space. The students of IIST have an added advantage as it is located in close proximity of Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre. The institute in less than 10 years of its inception has done remarkable work in the area of research. It has set up specialized centres for conducting high quality research in the area of space science.

Vinay Kumar Dadhwal, Director, IIST said, "The USP of IIST is its focus entirely on space science and technology. The second thing is its linkage with ISRO because ISRO has a unique place in the context of Indian technology. We also help ISRO through our expertise in different areas of research. There are over 100 PhD students doing work in the areas of Astronomy, Aerospace, Avionics, etc. We have also proposed to set up a centre on Mars second mission and are proposing for Venus mission on what types of detectors can be used."

In the past decade ISRO has taken log strides in the area of space science and is looking at the heavier payload arena, thus creating bright future for aspiring space scientists. The best way to enter in this discipline is through the IIST route as the courses are framed keeping in mind the needs of the space programme. IIST offers a dual-degree programme with post-graduate specialization in astronomy and astrophysics, earth system science and optical engineering.

Young institutes with research focus

* Web of Science Index

# Careers360 Research (till 2016)