IIT-Madras generates highest-ever funding, revenue in FY21-22; rakes in $120 million

In a major milestone for Indian academia, the Indian Institute of Technology-Madras (IIT-M) generated more than Rs.1000cr ($120.8million) in funding, and revenue in the financial year 2021-22. This is the first time in the history of the institute that the figure is surpassing the Rs.1000 crore ($1.21billion)mark, this sum includes Rs.768cr ($ 92.7 million) from Government projects and Rs.313crore($37.8 million) (in Industry consultancy. The Institute said that such collaborations are facilitated by a dedicated team at the Centre for Industrial Consultancy and Sponsored Research (ICSR).

Among the projects that raked in the funds are Education through Information and Communication Technology using Direct-to-Home(DTH), Centre of Excellence for Road Safety, Speech Technologies in Indian Languages and Collecting Datasets & Benchmarks for Building Indian Language Technology.The total funding of Rs.1081crore ($160 million)for the period 2021-22 also shows a marked increase from the previous years' numbers, Rs.714 crore ($86.2 million)in 2020-21 and Rs.570 crore ($68.9 million)in 2019-20.

Prof. Manu Santhanam, Dean, of ICSR at IIT Madras said that the institute's large value projects mostly the 5G telecom and computing sectors, are expected to grow further. "The total funding typically shows a growth rate year-on-year of around 5-8 per cent, but the industry funding has seen a greater spurt in recent years. A kew reason for the growth in industry-sponsored funding is the increased contribution in the form of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) for reasearch", he added.

The institute said that the numbers were a result of the strategy planned and implemented over the last decade, emphasis on technology transfer to the industry, consistent performance in NIRF rankings, high-quality research etc.