The Indian Institute of Science Education and Research Kolkata was founded in 2006 as one of the national network of seven such institutes created by the Ministry of Human Resource Development and is, with Pune, the oldest of the seven. The intention was to create "universities of the highest calibre in which teaching and education will be totally integrated with state of the art research" in order to make careers in science more attractive for high achievers.
It has been classified as an Institute of National Importance since 2012 and in 2018 was rated 25t , highest of the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research's, in the Indian government’s National Institutional Rankings Framework. It has, by Indian standards, a small student body who face intense competition through aptitude tests – either state boards, the KVPY Young Scientist Incentive Plan or the Indian Institutes’ Joint Entrance Exam - for their places and are usually ranked among the top 1 to 2 per cent in their cohorts.
The Indian Institute of Science Education and Research Kolkata has five departments – biology, physics, chemistry, mathematics and statistics and earth sciences. The department of biology hosts a chemical ecology laboratory studying plant-insect interaction which is run in partnership with Germany’s Max Planck Institute.
While named after Kolkata, the university is located in rural districts outside the city. Its purpose-built 250 acre campus at Mohungana in the Nadia district, close to the border with Bangladesh, still has some construction and development to come. Students assist in the Ek-Pekal programme under which they teach pupils from poor rural families.
