IIT-Madras has chalked out a six-year roadmap to try for a place among the top 50 global technological universities in all disciplines.

The Strategic Plan 2014-2020 sets out targets for each sphere of activity. This includes academic programmes, research, collaboration with industry, human resource development, entrepreneurship, development of infrastructure and facilities, student life, placement, community outreach, international and alumni relations.

IIT-Madras will nurture faculty groups working on transformational techniques that can address societal challenges with regard to water, energy, healthcare, housing and education.

A major initiative will be to develop Centres of Excellence (CoE) in areas with potentially large societal impact. Centres have already been created in areas of water, decentralised power systems, nanotechnology, nanoelectronics, telecom, heritage structure, technology and policy and sustainable development.

The Strategic Plan envisages about 25 such centres at any point in time. Each CoE will involve 10-15 faculty members drawn from multiple disciplines.

Course programmes

In tune with the changing demands, the Strategic Plan aims to introduce flexibility in the curriculum by offering students a wide choice of electives. The curriculum will be structured such that the core course component gets around 50 per cent weightage with multi-disciplinary electives making up the rest.

Going by the Strategic Plan, by 2020, IIT-M will have a 700-strong faculty from around 550 now.

At that time, the institute will be offering nearly 2,000 courses (over 1,250 now). While the conventional ‘chalk-the-talk’ teaching technique will continue to have its place of pride, self- and group-learning will be encouraged.

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