The Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi and Indraprastha Institute of Information Technology (IIIT-Delhi) had signed an MoU earlier this year to establish a collaborative platform for mutual benefit.

The MoU intended to initiate wide-ranging partnerships in academics, research, product & process development, and human resource development with profound socio-economic impact.

Taking it forward, IIT Delhi and IIIT-Delhi had invited joint research projects from the faculty members of both institutions for inter-disciplinary research in cutting-edge areas viz. Computer Science and Engineering, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML), Electronics and Communication Engineering, Computational Biology, Social Science, Humanities and Quantum Computing.

An external expert committee evaluated the projects and selected five projects for a seed grant. The projects include studies on human brain structure and anxiety; femtech and its future in India; development of nanodevices; mathematics theories propounded by Ramanujam; model agnostic evaluation of deep-model transfer.

Tenable for two years, the projects aim to attract full-fledged sponsorship from external agencies based on their outcomes. These projects will function through the Multi-Institutional Faculty Interdisciplinary Projects (MFIRP) scheme of the Industrial Research & Development (IRD) Unit of IIT Delhi.