Indian Institute of Technology Madras

Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IIT Madras) located in Chennai, India, is one among the foremost institutes of national importance in higher technological education, basic and applied research.

IIT Madras in brief

IIT Madras is a residential institute with nearly 550 faculty, 8000 students and 1250 administrative & supporting staff and is a self-contained campus located in a beautiful wooded land of about 250 hectares. It has established itself as a premier centre for teaching, research and industrial consultancy in the country.

The Institute has sixteen academic departments and a few advanced research centres in various disciplines of engineering and pure sciences, with nearly 100 laboratories organised in a unique pattern of functioning. A faculty of international repute, a brilliant student community, excellent technical & supporting staff and an effective administration have all contributed to the pre-eminent status of IIT Madras. The campus is located in the city of Chennai, previously known as Madras. Chennai is the state capital of Tamil Nadu, a southern state in India.

History of the partnership

The cooperation between IIT Madras and KTH has a long history, with both Universities involved in Erasmus Mundus External Cooperation Window projects and research collaboration between individual faculties. This relationship was formalized by signing a MoU between both Universities in 2012 with student mobility commencing in 2014. In January 2019, Prof. Stefan Östlund, Vice President for Global relations, led a KTH faculty delegation to IIT Madras for a joint workshop to explore avenues for deepening the collaboration. As a result a joint PhD supervision agreement and a key partner agreement was signed between KTH President Prof. Sigbritt Karlsson and IIT Madras Director Prof. Bhaskar Ramamurthi in New Delhi during the state visit of His Majesty King of Sweden to India in December 2019.

Research collaboration

Like KTH, IIT Madras has advanced research facilities and researchers in most topics related to technology and hence several research co-operations exist between the faculty. Prominent topics of existing collaboration are Electric Power Engineering, High Voltage Engineering, Transportation Engineering, Biotechnology, Wireless Communication, Artificial Intelligence, Material Science, and Computer Science. After signing of agreement in Dec 2019, joint PhD supervision between research groups have started and it is expected to grow in coming years.

Educational collaboration

IIT Madras and KTH are cooperating in activities where high quality contents generated at their respective institutes are made available to society through e-Learning platforms, targeting students and professionals. EECS school at KTH and Electrical Engineering at IIT Madras have a teacher exchange agreement under the Linneaus-Palme prgramme.

Other forms of cooperation and events

Both IIT Madras and KTH are involved in EU Erasmus+ project MIELES - Modernizing and Enhancing Indian eLearning Educational Strategies and in EU Erasmus+ project EQUAMBI – Enhancing Quality Assurance Management and Benchmarking Strategies in Indian Universities. As a sub-activity of the MIELES project, two courses by KTH professors were offered at the online platform NPTEL coordinated by IIT Madras. Both institutes are also in the Heritage Network between prominent Indian and European Universities.