Last Update : December 1, 2024
Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham has established itself as a leading academic institution with direct involvement and strategic input into national government and regional non-government organizations’ SDG policy development throughout 2024. This engagement encompasses identifying problems and challenges, developing policies and strategies, modelling future scenarios with and without interventions, monitoring and reporting on interventions, and enabling adaptive management across multiple Sustainable Development Goals.
Amrita’s UNESCO Chair on Experiential Learning for Sustainable Innovation and Development led comprehensive field studies and dialogues in 2024 targeting persistent challenges including rural poverty, gender inequality, climate vulnerability, and digital exclusion. The institution’s SDG office coordinated with national government panels to systematically assess and document gaps affecting marginalized communities, particularly in rural and tribal regions.
Through its collaboration with the Center for Research in Schemes and Policies (CRISP), signed in February 2024, Amrita partnered with former senior Government of India civil servants including R. Subrahmanyam (former Secretary of Higher Education and Social Justice) to identify policy implementation gaps and strengthen social data sciences. CRISP, founded by civil servants with over three decades of experience, works directly with central and state governments to help design, redesign, and implement better schemes and policies.
Amrita co-developed frameworks and guidelines on skill development and digital inclusion for underprivileged groups in 2024, shaping policies aligned with SDG 1 (No Poverty), SDG 4 (Quality Education), SDG 10 (Reduced Inequalities), and SDG 17 (Partnerships for the Goals). The university’s policy contributions were featured at the Times Higher Education Global Sustainable Development Congress in Bangkok (June 13-15, 2024), where Provost Dr. Maneesha V. Ramesh showcased Amrita’s comprehensive framework and case studies through the panel “Excellence in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals: Spotlight on India”.
The institution’s 2024 policy paper titled “Sustainable Development Goal 12 and its Synergies with Other SDGs” provided a framework for consumption-based accounting (CBA), recommending the inclusion of food-waste quantification metrics within institutional sustainability audits. This report guided the integration of carbon and organic-waste data into Amrita’s internal Green Audit procedures, establishing benchmarks adopted by other institutions.
Amrita’s advanced climate modelling and disaster prediction research in 2024 aligned with the National Mission for Sustaining the Himalayan Ecosystem (NMSHE) under the National Action Plan on Climate Change (NAPCC). The university developed sophisticated climate models and disaster prediction technologies for the Eastern Himalayas, creating impact-based forecasting systems that model likely futures with and without interventions.[11][12][2]
The institution’s pioneering Glacial Lake Outburst Flood (GLOF), landslide, and flood forecasting platform operates at a granular spatial scale of approximately 5 km² across vulnerable regions of North Sikkim, enabling localized simulation of hydrological processes and hazard behavior. This platform utilizes heterogeneous models to simulate key hydrometeorological variables including rainfall, snowfall, evapotranspiration, soil moisture, groundwater infiltration, and discharge, capturing the entire chain of water movement from canopy interception to subsurface storage.[12]
Through its partnership with the India Meteorological Department (IMD), signed in 2024, Amrita enhanced dynamic multi-hazard risk modeling and developed rainfall threshold-based early warning systems for landslides. This collaboration enables scenario modeling that compares outcomes with and without technological interventions, informing national disaster management policy.
Amrita implemented comprehensive monitoring and reporting systems across multiple SDG domains in 2024. The institution’s systematic food waste measurement tracked and reduced over 8,000 kg/month campus food waste, providing quantitative data to inform SDG 12 (Responsible Consumption and Production) and SDG 13 (Climate Action) intervention progress. These results were documented through national panels and published in annual progress reports available through Amrita’s SDG reporting portal.[6][10][14][3]
The university’s Water Reuse Measurement framework, formalized in 2024, achieved a 68% reuse ratio across all campuses through expanded treatment capacity, digital monitoring, and green campus integration. Laboratory teams at Amritapuri and Coimbatore continuously test samples for compliance, ensuring safety for all non-potable applications with BOD levels below 3 mg/L, exceeding regulatory standards.[15][16]
Amrita’s Landslide Early Warning System (LEWS) in Sikkim, developed in collaboration with the Sikkim State Disaster Management Authority (SSDMA) through an MoU signed in May 2024, employs real-time monitoring of rainfall, soil moisture, pore-water pressure, and other geophysical parameters. Since 2013, the system has deployed over 50 sensors to monitor dynamic risk patterns, providing early warnings first at the community level, followed by alerts to government and research institutions.
Amrita’s SDG office and UNESCO Chair have enabled adaptive management by integrating carbon and organic waste metrics into institutional audits, realigning strategies in response to audit findings and external feedback. The 2024 Campus Sustainable Consumption Audit identified gaps and priority areas for 2025, including complete central integration of asset barcodes into Computerised Maintenance Management Systems (CMMS) to enable predictive maintenance and faster incident response.
The institution’s Water Reuse Policy 2024 establishes ongoing educational campaigns and training programs to raise awareness about sustainable water practices, fostering a culture of collective responsibility. By 2025-26, the university targets an 80% reuse ratio through the addition of a 4 MLD Sewage Treatment Plant and full integration of IoT-based water analytics across all campuses.
Through its Live-in-Labs® program, which reached over 1 million beneficiaries across 25 states since 2013, Amrita enables adaptive management through continuous community feedback loops. The program’s 400,000+ field hours and 300+ projects provide real-time data for policy recalibration and intervention refinement.
Amrita’s direct participation in the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) seminars in 2024 brought expertise in mountain hazards, landslides, snow avalanches, and GLOF risk reduction and mitigation to national policy dialogues. Dr. Maneesha V. Ramesh, Provost and Director of Amrita Centre for Wireless Networks and Applications, presented insights on “Regional Scale Rainfall Threshold-Based Landslide Early Warning,” contributing actionable recommendations to enhance resilience and safety in mountainous regions.
The university’s Civil 20 (C20) India 2023 leadership, under Chancellor Sri Mata Amritanandamayi Devi as Chair, resulted in policy recommendations submitted at the C20 Summit in Jaipur (July 31, 2023) that were adopted by G20 governments. The C20 Policy Pack, developed through collaboration with over 6,000 civil society organizations from 154 countries, addressed crucial challenges including health, women’s empowerment, disaster resilience, education, and water management.
Amrita’s collaboration with environmental NGOs including CANSA (Climate Action Network South Asia), Industree, and Vasudha Foundation from February 2023 through June 2024 focused on advancing sustainable agricultural practices, rural enterprise empowerment, and community-based conservation initiatives. These partnerships have enabled knowledge sharing in sustainable development literacy, disaster management, and energy literacy, impacting over 200 participants including educators and students.
Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham’s sustained policy engagement was validated through its #1 ranking in India and placement among the world’s Top 100 universities in the Times Higher Education Impact Rankings 2024. The university achieved exceptional rankings including SDG 3 (Good Health and Well-being) – Rank 7, SDG 4 (Quality Education) – Rank 3, SDG 5 (Gender Equality) – Rank 22, SDG 6 (Clean Water and Sanitation) – Rank 62, SDG 7 (Affordable and Clean Energy) – Rank 87, SDG 9 (Industry, Innovation, and Infrastructure) – Rank 87, and SDG 17 (Partnerships for the Goals) – Rank 301-400.
The Live-in-Labs® program received the prestigious Times Higher Education Asia Award 2024 for Outstanding Contribution to Environmental Leadership, recognizing its direct policy impact through community-engaged research and sustainable solution deployment. Judges highlighted the program’s “innovative efforts mobilise much of the brain power of the university in service of environmental sustainability” and “the power of collaboration among people from different walks of life in addressing shared challenges”.
Amrita’s School of Social and Behavioural Sciences launched the M.Sc. Social Data Science and Policy program in 2024, strengthening institutional capacity for policy analysis and government collaboration. The program, developed in partnership with CRISP, provides teaching and mentorship exchange aimed at fostering the cross-pollination of ideas and sharing of best practices among students, faculty, and research fellows.
The Amrita Center for Policy Research, established to act as an institutional mechanism for advancing higher education for sustainable development, provides policy inputs that enhance the efficacy and impact of Indian higher education institutions on UN SDG 2030 goals. The center collaborates with global networks including UN HESI, UN Academic Impact (UNAI), GUNi Network, UN SDSN, and Jean Monnet to improve policy analysis promoting globally recognized sustainability education and research training.
This comprehensive engagement demonstrates Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham’s continued leadership and direct input into national and regional SDG policy development, establishing the institution as a critical bridge between academic research, government policy formulation, and grassroots implementation across India’s sustainable development ecosystem.