The School of Natural Sciences and Engineering carries out original research and policy advocacy in diverse fields. The faculty are grouped under four programmes of which the Science Communication Programme was established only in 2019-20. During the year 2020-21, the school trained a record number of PhD students (20), post-doctoral fellows (6) and several young research fellows and project assistants due to the success of its faculty in securing long-term research funding from multiple sources. The faculty is also well-recognised for their policy advocacy and outreach that extends NIAS’s standing with the Government and academia. In this way, SNSE is making a major contribution to the vision of NIAS’s founder, the late JRD Tata.
Apart from being involved in a multi-year integrated project on Energy, Ecology and Nonlinear Modelling, the faculty in the school work on multiple research projects, carry out teaching, policy advocacy and outreach activities. The details of each of the four programmes in the school are provided in the following sections.