AU to get research park on par withint’l standards

CHENNAI: Anna University is all set to get a major facelift in various aspects, with Tamil Nadu government deciding to set up a research park on par with international standards. The Higher Education Department has also planned to introduce industry skill-based courses to the students at Anna University in collaboration with IBM.

A senior official from the Directorate of Technical Education (DOTE) told DT Next that the courses will be made available for the BE and B.Tech students from the coming academic year onwards. “The government has already allocated Rs 6 crore for this purpose,” he added.

Explaining establishing of a research park on the campus, the official said the project will be implemented in cooperation with student alumini members and industries at a cost of Rs 50 crore.

“The research park will have industry-based research project activities and incubation centres,” he said adding “this will benefit more than 20,000 undergraduate and postgraduate students every year”.

He said the research campus will also acquire Green Rating for Integrated Habitat Assessment (GRIHA), which is a rating tool that helps people concerned to assess the performance of their building against certain nationally acceptable benchmarks.

Stating that the research park will be spread across more than 5 acres to promote education and industrial collaboration, the official said: “it will have more than 100 lab and test facilities and will be on par with IIT and international institutions”.

He said as the university has ranked 16th among other institutions across the country according to NIRF (National Institutional Ranking Framework), there would be the establishment of 11 new technical and exclusive centres on the campus at a cost of Rs 10 crore.

“The setting up of centres include Robotics and Automation, Internet of Things, Cyber Security and Wireless System Design,” he added.