BHUBANESWAR: With an objective to explore opportunities of collaboration, intellectual cooperation, scholarly exchange, and development of national partnership, the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bhubaneswar and CSIR-Central Road Research Institute (CRRI), New Delhi have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on January 8, 2025.
The MoU was signed by Prof. Dinakar Pasla, Dean (Sponsored Research and Industrial Consultancy), IIT Bhubaneswar and Prof. Manoranjan Parida, Director, CSIR-CRRI, in the presence of Prof. Shreepad Karmalkar, Director, IIT Bhubaneswar.
The MoU intends to promote collaborative research, facilitate exchange of ideas, development of new knowledge, and enhance high quality research acumen.
As part of the MoU, both parties will conduct joint research on traffic and transportation engineering, pavement engineering, road safety and other allied civil engineering areas such as geotechnical engineering and bridge engineering, etc.
The modes of cooperation will include exchanges of faculty and students for research and teaching; development and implementation of collaborative research projects, professional development programmes, and capacity-building efforts; and dissemination of findings through scholarly publications, white papers, and in the media.
“This collaboration with CSIR-CRRI will enhance the ecosystem for research in the field road construction, contributing towards strengthening the infrastructure for transportation and connectivity. The School of Infrastructure at IIT Bhubaneswar deals with academics and research in different areas of civil engineering through its eminent faculty members. IIT Bhubaneswar, as a technical knowledge provider, is looking forward to this association to foster innovation in this field,” Prof. Karmalkar said.
CSIR-CRRI Director Prof. Parida said this MoU would bring transformation in research and development activities in the areas of roads and bridges, traffic and transportation, ground improvement and geotechnical engineering, rural roads, pavement design, pavement performance and its evaluation, instrumentation, environment and road safety. “We hope this association will help Odisha create a benchmark in this domain,” he said.
Prof. Sumanta Haldar, Head-School of Infrastructure, IIT Bhubaneswar; Dr. Pradeep Kumar, Chief Scientist, Head (Pavement Evaluation Division), CSIR-CRRI; Dr. Umesh Chandra Sahoo and Dr. Anush K. Chandrappa, Faculty Members, IIT Bhubaneswar were present on the occasion.