Indian Institute of Technology Madras

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. IIT Madras 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.

International Immersion Experience scholarship

The International Immersion Experience is inviting three KTH PhD students per year for jointly supervised research stays at IIT Madras. IIT Madras welcomes KTH PhD students (in their early stages of doctoral studies) to experience short-term research opportunities. Students in the areas you will find in the links below or new disciplines are welcomed to reach out via their faculty/supervisor and the KTH International Relations Office (Pia Schmitt, pisc@kth.se ).

Research in the 16 departments at IIT Madras

Detailed summary of the faculty research

KTH PhD students will be spending 45 days and longer, but max 3 monthsin this program. IIT Madras welcomes PhD students anytime of the year that aligns with the research interests, however, it is ideal to avoid the peak summer months of May and June. The scholarship provides travel grants from Stockholm to Chennai as well as accommodation at IIT Madras.

For more information, visit IIT Madras website  or contact Pia Schmitt .

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.

Erasmus+ International Credit Mobility with IIT Madras 

The programme contributes to raising the quality of higher education and to get greater transparency between education programmes in different countries. The aim of the programme is also to increase competence and quality through internationalization with selected partners.

Staff mobility is available for both teaching and non-teaching staff and studies on Master (incoming) and PhD level (both incoming and outgoing).

For both teaching and non-teaching staff the minimum time spent at KTH/IIT Madras is 5 days not including days for travel. For teachers going abroad on a teaching assignment there is a minimum of 8 hours teaching per 5 days abroad.

Contact: Pia Schmitt, pisc@kth.se

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.

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