With headquarters at Coimbatore and campuses at Amritapuri, Kochi, Bangalore and Mysore, Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham has emerged as one of the fastest growing institutions of higher learning in India.
The university is managed by the Mata Amritanandamayi Math. Sri Mata Amritanandamayi Devi, Amma, one of the foremost humanitarian leaders in the world today, is Chancellor of the university.
The university offers 120+ high-quality undergraduate, postgraduate and doctoral programs in engineering, business, medicine, dentistry, pharmacy, nursing, journalism, biotechnology, information technology, arts and sciences, health sciences, education, microbiology, hospital management, communication, visual media studies and ayurveda.
Based on evaluation of all campuses and programs by a peer review committee, the university has been accredited by the National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) with an 'A' grade.
Amrita began as a School of Engineering in 1994 in an obscure village, Ettimadai, located at the foothills of Bouluvanpatty ranges of the Western Ghats in Coimbatore District, Tamil Nadu.
In 1994, there were only 120 students and 13 faculty members. Today, Amrita has a student population of over 14,000 and faculty strength of 1500, including over 220 faculty members with Ph.D. qualifications.
The university faculty-student ratio of 1:8 is one of the best among all institutions of higher learning in India, especially private universities.
The university encompasses a total land area of over 600 acres with building complexes occupying around 7 million square feet. Right from the outset, the university has had a multi-disciplinary and multi-campus.
In 2003, Amrita became the youngest group of higher educational institutions in India to be conferred the "University" status under "Section 3 of UGC Act 1956" by the Government of India.
Research is a highly significant activity at the university. Several research centers in cutting-edge areas such as nanosciences, molecular medicine, biotechnology, cyber security, computational engineering and environmental studies have commenced with support from various government agencies like TIFAC, DBT, DST, ISRO, DRDO and BARC as well as industry leaders like Microsoft, TCS and HP.
Amrita has attracted grants from various governmental and private funding agencies, receiving over Rs. 75 crores during the past five years.
Amrita faculty members have published over 850 papers in reputed international and national journals. Amrita has also been granted 14 major patents and inventions, including Adaptive and Automatic Insulin Pump, Wireless Telematics, Virtual Private Network (VPN) and Amrita Hospital Information System (AHIS).
The 1450-bed super-specialty hospital, Amrita Institute of Medical Sciences (AIMS) attached to the Amrita School of Medicine at the Health Sciences campus in Kochi, is a unique, state-of-the-art institution offering subsidized and free treatment, totalling over Rs. 25 crores per year, to poor and needy patients.
This super-specialty hospital offers telemedicine services to various remote parts of the country and Africa through the ISRO satellite link. AIMS hospital is accredited with ISO 9002-2000, NABH and NABL. Amrita is the only university hospital in India to secure NABH accreditation.
All Amrita University students have ample opportunity for orientation in yoga, meditation and cultural education. Integrated Amrita Meditation (IAM) technique helps them to achieve holistic development of mind and body.
Students have demonstrated their commitment to engaging with society and the community by participating in disaster relief and rehabilitation activities after the Gujarat earthquake in 2001, Tsunami relief operations in Tamil Nadu and Kerala in 2005-2006 and flood relief operations in Bihar in 2009.
A Memorandum of Understanding was signed in 2005 by Amrita and various US Universities, most being ranked among the best in the world. Harvard, Purdue, State University of New York (SUNY) at Buffalo, Yale, Princeton, Columbia, Berkeley, Michigan, Maryland and University of California inked this landmark agreement with Amrita for faculty and student exchange, collaborative research and education programs, cross-continental projects and broadcast of distinguished lectures using EDUSAT to 50 institutions and universities around the country.
This landmark agreement was signed on July 20, 2005 during the visit of the Honorable Prime Minister of India, Dr. Manmohan Singh to Washington DC. President of India, Dr. Abdul Kalam launched this Indo-US Inter-University Collaborative Initiative in Higher Education and Research using EDUSAT in December 2005. Since then, there have been over 500 distinguished lectures and numerous short-term courses as part of this initiative. In addition, seven major research projects have been undertaken and 15 full-fledged courses have been offered.
Recently Amrita has successfully completed a European Commission funded project in Wireless Sensors Networks for Landslide Detection. This project was shared among nine European universities and research centers and Amrita and Antrix Corporation, the commercial wing of ISRO.
Amrita also has joined research projects and collaborative programs with University of Milan, University of Twente, Technical University of Munich, University of Groningen and Uppsala University in Europe. Extensive faculty and student exchange programs through Erasmus Mundus of the European Commission have delegated 40 students and 10 faculty members from Amrita to various European universities in United Kingdom, Ireland, Italy, Sweden, Germany, Finland, Bulgaria and Netherlands to academic and research assignments.
