Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Mohali

Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER)
Motto	In Pursuit of Knowledge
Established	2007
Type	Research & Education Institute
Director	N. Sathyamurthy
Academic staff	43
Undergraduates	265
Postgraduates	56
Location	Mohali, Punjab, India
Website	http://www.iisermohali.ac.in

The Indian Institute of Science Education Research (IISER) Mohali has been established as an autonomous academic institution in 2007 by the Ministry of Human Resources and Development, Government of India, New Delhi, to research in frontier areas of science and to provide science education at the undergraduate and postgraduate level. The institute believes in the philosophy of integration of science streams (Physics, Chemistry, Mathematics and Biology) in order to create scientists and hence offers various interdisciplinary courses during all its 5 year Int. M.S. and also during its PhD programme.

Milestones

Foundation stone of IISER, Mohali was laid on 27 September 2006 by the Prime Minister of India Dr. Manmohan Singh.

The Computing Facility of IISER Mohali was inaugurated on 3 September 2007 by Dr Thirumalachari Ramasami (Secretary, DST). Dr. Ramasami also interacted with IISER students and faculty on the occasion and delivered a colloquium.

The Earth-breaking ceremony for IISER boundary wall was held on 29 December 2008 at the proposed campus site in Knowledge City, Sector 81, S.A.S. Nagar. The ceremony was performed by Prof. N. Sathyamurthy, Director IISER.

Prof. C.N.R. Rao inaugurated the Chemistry Research Laboratory on 8 April 2009 at IISER Mohali.

IISER Mohali is presently functioning from a transit campus in Chandigarh. The Institute is currently located in the Academic Block of the Mahatma Gandhi State Institute of Public Administration (MGSIPA), Sector 26, Chandigarh. IISER Mohali's fully residential campus will ultimately be located in Mohali, and hopefully it will move to the Mohali campus by 2010.^{[citation needed]}

The Central Analytical Facility of IISER Mohali has been inaugurated in March 2010. The facility is functional with sophisticated instruments like NMR, circular dichroism, AFM and many more already working.^{[citation needed]}

New Campus

The campus at Sector 81 is coming up well. The hostels have been completely shifted to the new campus at Sector 81. The hostels are two eight storey buildings of around 250 single rooms. One academic block and one lecture hall complex is expected to be completed by October 2011. The classes and labs for first and second year students are operational at the new campus. The new campus has also got faculty housing and in some months we could hope for that apartment to come up.

Objectives

• To create a world class institution for undergraduate and postgraduate education in science with an intellectually alive atmosphere for research.
• To create a unique research institution in the country in which education will be totally integrated with state-of-the-art research.
• To create a cadre of high calibre internationally well-known faculty members devoted to teaching as well as research in science.

Academic programs

• Integrated Master's level (B.S.-M.S.): Admission to this program is after 10+2 years of school training and is currently done in co-ordination with the other IISERs through a Joint Admission Programme. The qualifying criteria are Kishore Vigyan Protsahan Yojana, IIT-JEE and the performance in the 10+2 school-leaving examinations.^{[citation needed]} you can visit this page for more information on courses being offered in IISER mohali.
• Doctoral Program (Ph.D.): Admission to the doctoral program is after a Master's degree in science. Besides the students of the Integrated Master's program, Postgraduate students with a Master's degree in science from other Universities/Institutes will also be admitted to the doctoral program. The program will involve course work, a qualifying examination, a state-of-the-art seminar, thesis work, open seminar and a thesis examination, leading to the award of a PhD degree. The quantum of course work will vary depending on the background of the student. Besides individual research, students will be involved in several professional activities such as seminars, workshops, presentations and review meetings. All doctoral students will assist faculty members in teaching during the course of the doctoral program.^{[citation needed]}

Facilities

The institute has many state-of-the-art equipments for research in various fields of Science. The current facilities include:-

• Nuclear magnetic resonance Spectrometer (NMR)-The institute currently houses two high-field FTNMR spectrometers of frequency: 400 MHz and 600 MHz, in a specially designed magnet hall.
  

  

  600 MHz spectrometer
  ^{[citation needed]}
• Single Crystal X-ray Diffraction Crystallograph
• Cell Culture Facility- The institute has state-of-the-art animal cell culture facility and research is going on in breast cancer and immunology.
• Atomic Force microscope- The atomic force microscope gives an Z-axis resolution of 3 angstroms. It can be also be used for near-field optical imaging using an optic fiber. The assembly also has a high sensitivity fluorescence microscope which uses several high power lasers. The setup is completely isolated from vibrations using specially designed beds.

Atomic force microscope with Raman IR spectrometer to its right

• Raman Infra red spectroscope- The Raman IR spectroscope utilizes multiple high power lasers of different wavelengths.
• Circular Dichroic Spectorometer- It uses circularly polarized light to study chirality in bio-molecules like proteins.
• Computing Facility- The Computing Facility at IISER Mohali is a Linux-based set of computers. Public domain software is available for education and research. The facility has been planned with a three-fold usage in mind, namely: to impart computer skills to IISER Mohali's students, to provide network and internet facilities to the IISER Mohali community, and to provide computation power to carry out scientific research.

Student activities

The institute has an official SRC (students representative committee), chosen every year by proper democratic way. Time to time SRC has been effective and ineffective in student's related matters. Cultural programmes are not much frequent but they are enough of them. Sports facility is good in new campus having Volleyball court, basketball court, Football and cricket ground, table tennis and gymnasium. The students attend various seminars and colloquium and benefit largely. Students have also initiated 'astronomy club' which discusses latest advances in the field of astronomy. It also builds small scale optic instruments in order to view solar eclipse etc. Small 'informal' education discussions always pop up at the institute nucleus(snacks spot) and students come up with interesting ideas.^{[citation needed]}

The student community of IISER Mohali is very active and apart from academic activities is also indulged in recreation in the form of sports/dance/music/debating/drama. Dance and music classes are held 2-3 times a week. An active drama club organizes meaningful dramas during cultural meets of the institute. IISER also has a debating society which has won laurels by representing IISER at many inter-institute debating meets. A small group of IISER students has taken an initiative - YATN (youth's attempt to nurture) to teach the children of laborers who are building the institute.^{[citation needed]}

How To Reach

The transit campus is situated in sec-26 of chandigarh. You can reach here very easily from Bus Stand (sec-17 or sec-43) and also from Railway station or airport. The milestones which you can use to reach this place is St. John's school or St. Kabir school or Strawberry fields school. There are some colleges near this campus those are CCET (chandigarh college of engg and tech) and Khalsa College or ask for Gandhi Bhawan in sec 26. you can also take rickshaw from madhya marg sec-26. The main campus at sec-81 is little out of the town. This place really falls in mohali district of punjab. it is around 15 km from sec-17 bus stand or from railway station chandigarh. The milestones which can be used are philips factory in phase 9 industrial area, mohali. This is around 1.5 km from the Institute. You can ask for directions from that philips factory by saying "where is a new college coming up?". An ISB (Indian school of business) is also coming up adjacent to IISER campus. You can come to sec-66 gurudwaara/market and ask the same question. By the name IISER, not much people will be knowing the place. So, using this name will be a little difficult to get directions. Mohali railway station is around 2-3 km from institute. But the frequency of trains is very little. Delhi-Una janshatabdi passes through and stops at Mohali station(SAS NAGAR MOHALI). if you are coming from delhi this train is a real good option.

See also

• List of universities in India
• List of autonomous higher education institutes in India

External links

• Official website