VISION
ICTS is a multi- and inter-disciplinary effort with a strong human resource development component. The main goals of ICTS are to foster research, be a resource for high level education and training, and reach out to the larger society by being a node for scientific information and values.
Research
The basic idea behind ICTS is that it will contribute critically to research excellence and strength in theoretical sciences through a well thought out, responsive, program of research activities and necessary education/training for the future. In this context, theoretical activities in traditional areas of the physical and mathematical sciences suggest themselves. However there will be emphasis on activities in areas overlapping traditional fields of science, keeping in mind that strength in individual disciplines lends to fruitful interdisciplinary collaborations. These areas include, for example, biological physics, computational science, complex systems, fluids, the interface between cosmology, particle physics and string theory, new emergent areas of mathematics with applications to biology, finance and so on.
ICTS will provide a platform and infrastructure to organize various activities in theoretical and mathematical sciences, at the forefront of knowledge. The emphasis would be on activities in areas overlapping traditional fields of science. By planning for researchers to meet for critical periods of time that foster discussions and collaborations, the Centre will help focus creative scientific energy both for national growth, and as a resource for global science and for this region of the world.
Education & Training
There is a profound need in India today to inspire students to take up careers in the basic sciences. One of the key ingredients in bringing this about (besides material issues) is the awareness among students of the fascinating questions science asks and tries to find answers to. The Centre will contribute to the flourishing of native talent by organizing interaction meetings of students (and their professors) with visiting scientists and scholars. Some of the research level activities of the Centre will be preceded by an instructional workshop, to enable young Indian and foreign participants to make the best use of the program. Students at the right stages of their career, who spend one or two semesters at the Centre, can benefit enormously from the activities of the Centre.
Outreach
An important aspect of ICTS, from the very beginning, will be to make freely available the proceedings of its activities in various formats. To facilitate this, the Centre has begun to maintain a Service Infomatique. Lectures of ICTS programs can be made available to other institutions in the country via a broadband webcast. Access to video recordings of lectures and other audio-visual material will be made available on the ICTS website and on DVDs and CDs. As part of its programs, ICTS will also organize regular activities like public lectures in the sciences and other societal issues, with a view to seek active engagement and support for its activities from society. This will help foster an active interest in basic sciences in society
Public-Private partnership
Basic sciences form the core knowledge on which technology and industry is based. In order to sustain a healthy and productive interaction between these endeavors it is imperative to forge partnerships between basic science, technology and industry. Such partnerships play an important role in developed countries and it is important to induct them in India. ICTS will contribute to this process by presenting platforms for interaction between scientists, technologists and leaders from industry. Mathematical finance, bio-technology, mathematical modeling, material science, etc are a few of the areas where fruitful collaborations can be forged.
Anyone holding a faculty position at any research and educational institution can apply for organizing a program at the ICTS. However, until the ICTS campus comes up, its programs must be organized at other places in India. For this reason, at present, it is preferable to have at least one of the organizers from an existing institution in India. A typical proposal for organizing a program is expected to have two or more organizers.
The organizers must fill up this form for making a preliminary proposal. The proposals will be scrutinized by a Program Committee of the ICTS. Successful programs will receive appropriate financial and administrative support from ICTS, including support for uploading audio-visual material collected from lecturers, etc. It should be emphasized that ICTS is not a funding agency for conferences and workshops. It is an organization for facilitating interactive activities of researchers with a strong educational component. The organizers must keep this in mind while submitting proposals for programs.
For all programs supported and organized by ICTS, it is essential that the organizers submit all the audiovisual material collected during the course of the program to the Service Informatique of ICTS. This service will ensure that the material is appropriately disseminated. The organizers are also required to submit a summary report within a month of the end of the program. There is no specific format for this report, but it would be useful if it contains inputs from the program participants and lecturers, in addition to those of the organizers.
Download a set of guidelines for writing program proposals.
Service Informatique
Students, teachers and researchers who are affiliated to an educational institution and have access only to low bandwidth internet service may request Service Informatique of ICTS for DVD's or CD's of the instructional material on this website. The Service Informatique will provide these free of cost to bonafide users. Please note that the material will be mailed only to the institutional address of the person from whom the request is received.
The overall scientific direction and administration of the Centre is the responsibility of a Management Board and the Centre Director, currently Spenta R. Wadia. The Management Board and the Centre Director are assisted in this task by an International Advisory Council, consisting of eminent scientists and persons with experience in running institutions with similar programs. A Program Committee, consisting of acknowledged leaders in different areas of science, helps the Centre Director in selecting program proposals for the Centre to organize.
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Research
The basic idea behind ICTS is that it will contribute critically to research excellence and strength in theoretical sciences through a well thought out, responsive, program of research activities and necessary education/training for the future. In this context, theoretical activities in traditional areas of the physical and mathematical sciences suggest themselves. However there will be emphasis on activities in areas overlapping traditional fields of science, keeping in mind that strength in individual disciplines lends to fruitful interdisciplinary collaborations. These areas include, for example, biological physics, computational science, complex systems, fluids, the interface between cosmology, particle physics and string theory, new emergent areas of mathematics with applications to biology, finance and so on.
ICTS will provide a platform and infrastructure to organize various activities in theoretical and mathematical sciences, at the forefront of knowledge. The emphasis would be on activities in areas overlapping traditional fields of science. By planning for researchers to meet for critical periods of time that foster discussions and collaborations, the Centre will help focus creative scientific energy both for national growth, and as a resource for global science and for this region of the world.
Education & Training
There is a profound need in India today to inspire students to take up careers in the basic sciences. One of the key ingredients in bringing this about (besides material issues) is the awareness among students of the fascinating questions science asks and tries to find answers to. The Centre will contribute to the flourishing of native talent by organizing interaction meetings of students (and their professors) with visiting scientists and scholars. Some of the research level activities of the Centre will be preceded by an instructional workshop, to enable young Indian and foreign participants to make the best use of the program. Students at the right stages of their career, who spend one or two semesters at the Centre, can benefit enormously from the activities of the Centre.
Outreach
An important aspect of ICTS, from the very beginning, will be to make freely available the proceedings of its activities in various formats. To facilitate this, the Centre has begun to maintain a Service Infomatique. Lectures of ICTS programs can be made available to other institutions in the country via a broadband webcast. Access to video recordings of lectures and other audio-visual material will be made available on the ICTS website and on DVDs and CDs. As part of its programs, ICTS will also organize regular activities like public lectures in the sciences and other societal issues, with a view to seek active engagement and support for its activities from society. This will help foster an active interest in basic sciences in society
Public-Private partnership
Basic sciences form the core knowledge on which technology and industry is based. In order to sustain a healthy and productive interaction between these endeavors it is imperative to forge partnerships between basic science, technology and industry. Such partnerships play an important role in developed countries and it is important to induct them in India. ICTS will contribute to this process by presenting platforms for interaction between scientists, technologists and leaders from industry. Mathematical finance, bio-technology, mathematical modeling, material science, etc are a few of the areas where fruitful collaborations can be forged.
POLICIES
Organizing a ProgramAnyone holding a faculty position at any research and educational institution can apply for organizing a program at the ICTS. However, until the ICTS campus comes up, its programs must be organized at other places in India. For this reason, at present, it is preferable to have at least one of the organizers from an existing institution in India. A typical proposal for organizing a program is expected to have two or more organizers.
The organizers must fill up this form for making a preliminary proposal. The proposals will be scrutinized by a Program Committee of the ICTS. Successful programs will receive appropriate financial and administrative support from ICTS, including support for uploading audio-visual material collected from lecturers, etc. It should be emphasized that ICTS is not a funding agency for conferences and workshops. It is an organization for facilitating interactive activities of researchers with a strong educational component. The organizers must keep this in mind while submitting proposals for programs.
For all programs supported and organized by ICTS, it is essential that the organizers submit all the audiovisual material collected during the course of the program to the Service Informatique of ICTS. This service will ensure that the material is appropriately disseminated. The organizers are also required to submit a summary report within a month of the end of the program. There is no specific format for this report, but it would be useful if it contains inputs from the program participants and lecturers, in addition to those of the organizers.
Download a set of guidelines for writing program proposals.
Service Informatique
Students, teachers and researchers who are affiliated to an educational institution and have access only to low bandwidth internet service may request Service Informatique of ICTS for DVD's or CD's of the instructional material on this website. The Service Informatique will provide these free of cost to bonafide users. Please note that the material will be mailed only to the institutional address of the person from whom the request is received.
The overall scientific direction and administration of the Centre is the responsibility of a Management Board and the Centre Director, currently Spenta R. Wadia. The Management Board and the Centre Director are assisted in this task by an International Advisory Council, consisting of eminent scientists and persons with experience in running institutions with similar programs. A Program Committee, consisting of acknowledged leaders in different areas of science, helps the Centre Director in selecting program proposals for the Centre to organize.
International Advisory Council
Michael Atiyah (University of Edinburgh)
Manjul Bhargava (Princeton University)
Roger Blandford (KIPAC, SLAC)
Edouard Brezin (ENS, Paris)
Michael Green (Cambridge University)
David Gross (KITP, Santa Barbara)
M. S. Narasimhan (CAM-TIFR, Bangalore)
T.V. Ramakrishnan (BHU and IISC Bangalore)
Subir Sachdev (Harvard University)
Ashoke Sen (HRI, Allahabad)
K. R. Sreenivasan (New York University)
Raman Sundrum (Johns Hopkins)
S. R. S. Varadhan (CIMS, New York University)
Management Board
M. Barma, Director TIFR (Chair)
V. Borkar, TIFR
S. Dani, TIFR
Avinash Dhar, TIFR
J. N. Kayarkar, Registrar TIFR
H. R. Krishnamurthy, IISC
Uma Mahadevan, TIFR, Member Secretary
P. Mukherjee, Joint Secretary (R&D), DAE
S. Ramakrishnan, TIFR
V. R. Sadasivam, Joint Secretary (Finance), DAE
K. Vijayraghavan, TIFR, Director NCBS
S. R. Wadia, TIFR, Director ICTS
Program Committee
Amit Apte, CAM-TIFR
Siva Athreya, ISI, Bangalore
Gautam Bhattacharyya, SINP
Vivek Borkar, TIFR
Kedar Damle, TIFR
Siddhartha Gadgil, IISc
Arindam Ghosh, IISc
Rajesh Gopakumar, HRI Past Program Committee Members
Neelima Gupte, IIT Madras
Sanjay Jain, Delhi University
E. D. Jemmis, IISER-Thiruvananthapuram
Rajeeva Karandikar, CMI
Anurag Kumar, IISc
Ashutosh Sharma, IIT-K
Mrinalini Puranik, NCBS-TIFR
Sriram Ramaswamy, IISc
R. Shankar, IMSc
Tarun Souradeep, IUCAA
R. Sujatha, TIFR
V. Srinivas, TIFR
Mukund Thattai, NCBS-TIFR
S. Trivedi, TIFR
Umesh Waghmare, JNCASR
- TIFR - Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai
- CAM-TIFR - TIFR Centre for Applicable Mathematics, Bangalore
- NCBS,TIFR - National Centre for Biological Sciences of TIFR, Bangalore
- IISC - Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore
- IISER - Indian Institute of Science Education and Research
- JNCASR - Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research, Bangalore
- RRI - Raman Research Institute, Bangalore
LOGO
The ICTS logo is the visual proof of the right angle triangle theorem due to Bhaskara II, a 12th century Indian mathematician. See, for example Georges Ifrah, "The Universal History of Numbers, Volume 2, Penguin, India (2005)"