The Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras, has recently shared data on sponsored research and industry funding and revenue for the year 2021-22. IIT Madras stated in its report that the team at the Industrial Consultancy and Sponsored Research (ICSR) has generated funding and revenue of over Rs 1,000 crore in a year (2021-22) for the first time in history. This includes Rs 768 crore in funding from projects sanctioned by the State and Central governments and Rs 313 crore in industry consultancy.
The IIT Madras has received major funds during 2021-22 for projects including Education through Information and Communication Technology using Direct-to-Home (DTH), Centre of Excellence for Road Safety (CoERS), Speech Technologies in Indian Languages and Collecting Datasets and Benchmarks for Building Indian Language Technology.
Highlighting the cutting-edge translational research underway in the Institute, Professor V. Kamakoti, Director, IIT Madras, said: “The performance of the Centre for Industrial Consultancy and Sponsored Research is very encouraging and perfectly aligned with the Strategic Plan of IIT Madras. This is a reflection of our increased interaction with funding agencies and industry.”
Explaining the initiatives taken by IIT Madras to enhance Industrial Consultancy and Sponsored Research, Professor Manu Santhanam, Dean (ICSR), IIT Madras, said, “IIT Madras has been the digital education hub for the country for quite some time with the NPTEL programme, and more recently, the Online BSc. The recent Direct-to-Home initiative has brought in a new dimension. The high-calibre faculty from the institute have been pushing the boundaries for the applications of their research, which brings in more and more industry funding.”
Professor Manu Santhanam stated that the optimum environment and infrastructure have been developed by IIT Madras for high-quality research, and the support services provided by ICSR and administration facilitate the smooth conduct of projects. "The consistent performance in the NIRF rankings has also boosted the stature of IIT Madras as a top education and research institution, and that is clearly the major force behind the excellent growth in Research and Development funding," he added.
