The first virtual Centre for collaborative research will focus on the thematic areas of research in advance bio-fuel technologies. The collaboration initiated in January, 2015 and engaged a research team from the five participating Indian Institute of Technology (IITs) consisting of 32 investigators who have been working on bio-energy and will jointly undertake research activities in the various thematic areas.

The "DBT-Pan IIT Centre for Bioenergy" will do advanced research on advance bio-fuel technologies like cyanobacterial bio-fuels, bio-fuels from micro-algae, ligno-cellulosic biomass to bio-fuels and also on techno-economic and life cycle analysis.
The virtual centre spread across 5 Indian Institutes of Technology; Bombay, Kharagpur, Guwahati, Jodhpur, and Roorkee and coordinated by IIT Bombay was formally launched by signing a Memorandum of Agreement (MoA) at New Delhi on September 3, 2015.

Memorandum of Agreement was signed between DBT and the participating 5 IITs in presence of Prof K VijayRaghavan, secretary DBT. The meeting was attended by Dr RenuSwarup (senior advisor, DBT), Prof Devang Khakhar (director, IIT Bombay), Prof Pradipta Banerji (director, IIT Roorkee), Prof Gautam Biswas, director, IIT Guwahati), Dr Sangita Kasture (joint director, DBT), Prof Pramod Wangikar (coordinator of the centre, IIT Bombay), Prof V Narayanan (IIT Jodhpur) and Prof Saikat Chakraborty (IIT Kharagpur).

The main objective of this centre is to develop advanced technologies in the area of biofuels, paving the way for a sustainable solution to the energy crisis.
Though the first virtual centre, it is the fourth centre in Bio-energy research set up by DBT in addition to the DBT-IOC Centre for Advanced Bioenergy Faridabad, DBT-ICT Centre for Energy Biosciences, Mumbai and DBT-ICGEB Centre for Advanced Bioenergy, New Delhi. This is also the largest among the four Bioenergy Centers in terms of investigator participation.

The Centre also aims to develop a mutually beneficial relationship with the bio-energy industry in India.