World Institute for Advanced Study
The World Institute for Advanced Study project was discussed and approved by the Board of CPFS as early as in 2001. It made significant strides in 2006-7 with the contribution of Distinguished Visiting Professors of world standard.
CPFS is engaged in setting up a campus in Delhi for the World Institute for Advanced Study (WIAS) which in its finished form will have more than a hundred faculty members, half of them visiting, with a small support staff. In the four-year period 2010-4, research groups will be nucleated around leading experts and augmented incrementally, as as when outstanding talent is available. In the first year, core research leaders will be identified for each of the 8 research themes by search committees, while the augmentation of material resources proceeds apace. Courses initiated in 2010 will be implemented from 2011 onwards. In tandem with steadily growing faculty numbers, the Institute will acquire its own custom-built infrastructure with a library, auditorium, gallery, seminar, laboratory and office complexes, state-of-the-art information and multimedia facilities, halls of residence for staff, visitors and students, by the beginning of the academic year in 2013. Furthermore, CPFS also proposes to set up a branch of WIAS in Kerala to serve as a visiting institution as well as to link up with and help develop similar institutes in collaboration with and located in major centres of learning elsewhere, as part of a global consortium.
In the academic year 2007-8, plans were made and wide consultations initiated to set up a companion institution, the World College for Advanced Study, that would impart instruction commencing with preparatory activity in 2010 to enrol graduate students and others with comparable qualifications, in a 1-year postgraduate diploma level programme, leading to a certificate of advanced study. A 2-year Master's level and 1-year M. Phil. level programmes will follow; the latter involving two quarters of taught courses followed by one quarter of research. To reinforce the close connection between teaching and research, student intake for a first degree will commence in due course after the appropriate clearances are received from regulatory bodies. The Institute and College will be sharply differentiated from other institutions of its kind by its efforts to combine equity with excellence, in the belief that outstanding potential can emerge only when the net is cast wide and talent is nurtured. In its finished form, the northern India campus in Delhi is expected to cater to a faculty strength of 1,500 and a student enrolment of 30,000. Although these figures may seem daunting, they pale by comparison with both demand and potential.
Applications may be made online through http://www.cpfs.info/. While candidate lists for positions will be made by search committees of distinguished experts, anyone interested is welcome to send in, via the contact form on this site, expressions of interest.
E-mail: wiasATcpfs.res.in or wcasATcpfs.res.in