National Institute of Technology (NIT) Patna has collaborated with the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) to establish an academic centre for space research.
According to reports, a memorandum of understanding (MoU) was signed between NIT Patna and ISRO to establish ‘Regional Academic Centre for Space’ at the institute to promote space research among their students.
The MoU was signed in the presence of prominent dignitaries like NIT Patna director PK Jain, Director of CBPO, Sudheer Kumar N and ISRO associate director MA Paul from the ISRO headquarters.
The newly established regional academic centre for space research will pave the way for advanced research in the future technology of the Indian space programme, the report said. Further, NIT Patna will be mainly responsible and be the nodal centre for conducting advanced research in the eastern region.
The regional academic centre will act as a facilitator to simplify the advanced research in various fields including space science, space technology, and space applications important for space programmes being operated in the eastern India such as Bihar, Odisha, Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Jharkhand, West Bengal, and Sikkim.
While addressing the signing event, PK Jain said that NIT Patna will become a mentor institute for space research programmes after the establishment of the regional academic centre.
As a result, it will facilitate advanced research activities in different fields such as electronics, communication, information technology, material science, and remote sensing, as per the ISRO requirements, he said.
Further, the industry professionals will provide the topic and ideas from the interaction after which the institute will have to submit the joint research work with the ISRO’s report. Later, the project will be reviewed, monitored and guided by the scientists, Jain said.
The facility offered at the regional academic centre is available for any institute in Eastern India requiring any assistance in experimentation.
ISRO will offer a grant of INR 2 crore annually to aid the research projects, undergraduate, post graduate, PhD programmes and teaching faculties. Further, the short-term projects will be for the students from B.Tech, MTech course at NIT Patna and other institutes.
Besides, the regional centre will offer long-term research and development projects for PhD scholars and teachers and these projects can either be inter-college or individual, which will be further reviewed by the NIT Patna followed by ISRO, the report said.
Meanwhile, the ISRO has established a total of five regional academic centres throughout the country for space research, including NIT-K Surathkal, NIT-Kurukshetra, IIT-BHU, MNIT Jaipur, and Gauhati University.
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