And the institute, which is on a mission to fine-tune its strategies to become a world-class research university in science and technology, is giving thrust to whether it can become a policy thinktank for the country in the future.

“The government has a mechanism to set up policies, but no institute in India does it. We have the potential to become an institute that can advise the government and industry on policy matters. The issue will be discussed and debated by the vision committee,” said professor J B Phatak, convener of the golden jubilee celebrations

Saying that the “future vision” committee will concentrate on several aspects, including growth of the institute in terms of number of students, disciplines being offered and reaching out geographically, professor K Sudhakar, committee convener, said “the policy issue is part of our deliberations”.

“Benchmarking and taking corrective actions to realise the goals we have set for ourselves will be integral to developing a vision document for the institute,” he added.

Emphasising that IIT Bombay will focus on research initiatives in the domain of policy, Phatak said that setting up of a policy school could also be deliberated upon. He said that IIT Bombay had already started an MTech programme on development technology, which would focus on appropriate technologies for villages.

“So we need more such initiatives to ensure technology development percolates to all strata of society. We will create an articulated vision, define specific areas and review them so that research is considered significant for the country and the people,” said Phatak.

Meanwhile, convener of the recently-held international vice-chancellors conclave at IIT Bombay, professor Pradipta Banerji, said that one of the issues that needed to be looked into is what are the means whereby the institute can come in the forefront of policies.

“The IITs have never been in the forefront of driving science and technology policies. We have never been looked upon as a policy thinktank. But we are good problems solvers. What we need to find out is how to go about it and conclaves like this can certainly shed a light on it,” said Banerji.