The Union Cabinet today gave its approval for setting up of two Indian Institutes of Science Education and Research (IISERs) at Bhopal and Thiruvananthapuram, at a total cost of Rs. 1000 crores ( Rs. 500 crore per Institute). On the recommendation of the Scientific Advisory Council to the Prime Minister (SAC-PM), the Ministry of Human Resource Development (HRD) has set up three Indian Institutes of Science Education and Research (IISERs) at Pune, Kolkata and Mohali.
Indian Institutes of Science Education and Research (IISERs), Bhopal and Thiruvananthapuram are the fourth and fifth in the chain of IISERs to be set up in the country by the Ministry of HRD. The Government of India has decided to create the IISERs with the unique objective of integrating undergraduate education, postgraduate education and research under the same umbrella.
The basic idea of IISER is to create research universities of the highest caliber in which teaching and education will be totally integrated with the state of the art research. These universities will be devoted to undergraduate and postgraduate teaching in sciences in an intellectually vibrant atmosphere of research. One of the important goals of creating these universities is to make education and careers in basic sciences more attractive by providing opportunities in integrative teaching and learning of sciences and breaking the barriers of traditional disciplines. One other significant concept of the proposed IISER is to actively forge strong relationship with existing universities and colleges and network with laboratories and institutions, in order to share and complement faculty resources as well as research, library and computational facilities.
IISERs at Bhopal and Thiruvananthapuram shall provide high-quality scientific manpower to government organizations such as the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE), Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), Defence Research & Development Organization (DRDO), teaching profession in other universities and other sectors of the society at large. They shall also cater to the growing research needs of the private sector.
The IISERs shall have programmes of study called Schools in various interdisciplinary areas of Biological Sciences, Mathematical and Computer Sciences, Physical Sciences, Chemical Sciences and Materials Sciences. Each Institute is expected to have about 2000 undergraduate and postgraduate students and research scholars, and about 200 faculty members, across disciplines.
The academic programmes will emphasise the spirit of research at an early stage of education. The laboratory infrastructure of IISERs at Bhopal and Thiruvananthapuram will be of international standards. They will attract the best talent within the country as well as successful Indian scientists from abroad.
