Javadekar to launch NIT Tiruchy’s 5-year strategic plan tomorrow

The plan aims at moving up in world ranking from presently being among top 1,000 institutes of the world. Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, NIT Director Mini Shaji Thomas announced the institute’s plan for progress and said the Institute has found a place in the top 1,000 institutes of the world as per the Times Higher Education World ranking 2019.

With a view to improve the world ranking, the Strategic Planning Group of the Institute, chaired by Thomas, has scripted a plan for the next five years, which would be unveiled by the Union Minister. With the implementation of the strategic plan 2019-2024, the Institute aims to be among the top 500 universities in the world, she said.

Thomas said the plan was a result of a series of long brainstorming sessions with experts within the Institute and outside. “It will guide the future steps towards academic excellence, research collaborations, innovation in sustainable development and enhanced internal revenue generation,” she said.

With India emerging as a global power in technologies-of-the-future, the strategic plan would help reset the governance framework in order to increase international collaboration and internal revenue generation and thereby carve a niche in emerging areas such as internet of things, artificial intelligence, sustainable development, including innovations in harnessing renewable energy.

The institute was gearing up to welcome more international students and faculty. The research scene would see the addition of new multi-and inter-disciplinary laboratories which would be developed into Centres of Dynamic Excellence (CoDEs). To kickstart the ongoing efforts, Javadekar would launch the first such CoDE that has been set up at a cost of Rs 190 crore with Siemens as the technology-partner.

Thomas said that of the Rs 190 crore, 90 per cent was received as grant from Siemens in kind and 10 per cent was funded by the NIT.

During his visit, the HRD Minister would also launch the hardware hackathon competition of the NIT’s flagship international technical festival ‘Pragyan 2019.’