IIT Delhi to Target External R&D Funding Worth Rs.550 Crore this Year
Indian Institute of Technology Delhi is looking forward to target external R&D funding of Rs.550 crore. Apart from this, IIT-D will also get a grant of Rs.1000 crore from the government over five years.
The Indian Institute of Technology-Delhi has plans to target external R&D funding worth Rs.550 crore and along with it, IIT-D will also get an additional grant of Rs.1000 crore from the government over the next five years as IIT-D got the prestigious Institute of eminence (loE) tag. As a part of this tag, IIT Delhi will have to focus more on research in order to compete with some of the best institutes at a global level.
BR Mehta, the R&D Dean, IIT Delhi said that the research and development activity at IIT-D has improved a lot in the past two years due to the focus on research and that's why all the research projects undertaken by IIT-D are driven by the industry or by what the society requires. For the upcoming year, IIT-D is working towards getting R&D funding of Rs.550 crore. IIT-D started focusing on R&D projects which are relevant for the industry and society in 2017 and at that time, it was getting only Rs.100 crore per year. Due to this, IIT-D has been able to get funding with an increase and it reached Rs.400 crore per year in the last two years, 2017 and 2018-19.
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The industry funds amount to 15% and the national government funds amount to 75% and the remaining amount comes from international institutes and organisations. IIT-D also uses its own internal funding as well. At the moment, IIT-D has about 500 research projects which are ongoing and have a duration of two-years each. Last year, IIT-D added 220 new projects which received funding of Rs.400 crore. Most of the research projects are in the areas of energy water, artificial intelligence, electric vehicles, etc. IIT Delhi is also working on high-end research facilities in nano-materials, manufacturing, and healthcare, etc.
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IIT-D has also managed to set-up five centres of excellence. These include research in clean energy, air, and environment, sustainable infrastructure to name a few. The institute has also signed an MoU with the industry and government bodies to set up more centres of excellence. The funding will also be used to improve the faculty to student ratio by increasing the strength of the faculty to 1000 from 600.