Visvesvaraya National Institute of Technology

VNIT Nagpur has many academic departments, with over 30 specialised laboratories and research centres.[3]

Undergraduate programs are offered in Architecture (B.Arch) and eight engineering (B.Tech) disciplines:

• Chemical Engineering
• Civil Engineering
• Computer Science and Engineering
• Electrical and Electronics Engineering
• Electronics and Communications Engineering
• Mechanical Engineering
• Metallurgical and Materials Engineering
• Mining Engineering

The Engineering undergraduate programs are usually four years, while Architecture is a five-year program. The institute accepts an incoming freshman class of up to 798 students.[6]

Graduate and research programs leading to Master's (M.Arch, M.Sc. and M.Tech) and Ph.D. degrees, are offered by the Architecture department, as well as all basic science departments and all eight engineering departments. A range of special fields of study are available in graduate and research programs in each discipline. The institute will soon offer Aeronautical Engineering. Up to 350 students are admitted to the Master's program each year.[7][8]

The institute uses relative grading on a 10-point scale.

Till 2012-13, admission to the undergraduate courses (B.Tech) at NITs was through the All India Engineering Entrance Examination (AIEEE). From 2013-14, admission to the undergraduate courses (B.Tech) is through the Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) Main.[6] The National Institutes of Technology (NITs) have one of the lowest acceptance rates for engineering institutes, around 2 to 3 percent, second only to the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) in India.[9][10]

From 2015, the Joint Seat Allocation Authority (JoSSA)] conducts common counselling and allocates seats jointly for all Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs), National Institutes of Technology (NITs) and Indian Institutes of Information Technology (IIITs). In 2015, over 1,300,000 candidates appeared for the JEE exam for admission to 28,000 undergraduate engineering seats (B.Tech) in 68 centrally-funded technical institutes that included all 19 IITs (10,000 seats), 31 NITs (15,500 seats) and 18 IIITs (2,500 seats).[11][12][13]

For B.Tech at VNIT Nagpur in 2015, the acceptance rates were as following:[14][15]

• Computer Science and Engineering: 0.33 percent
• Electronics and Communication Engineering: 0.58 percent
• Mechanical Engineering: 0.67 percent
• Electrical and Electronics Engineering: 0.82 percent
• Civil Engineering: 1.23 percent
• Chemical Engineering: 1.50 percent
• Metallurgical and Materials Engineering: 2.18 percent
• Mining Engineering: 2.61 percent

Undergraduate admissions for foreign students and NRIs are done through Direct Admission of Students Abroad (DASA) scheme which considers SAT scores.

Eighty percent of students to the postgraduate programs (M.Tech) are admitted based on performance in the Graduate Aptitude Test in Engineering (GATE) conducted by the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) and the Indian Institute of Science (IISc). These students receive stipends and tuition assistance from the institute and the Indian government. Another 20% of students are admitted based on industry or other research organization sponsorship, with full tuition typically paid by the sponsoring institution.[7]

The institute invites applications for PhD degree admissions in all departments every academic year.

VNIT Nagpur has been ranked 27th among engineering colleges in India by the National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) in 2020,[16] and 24th by Outlook India in 2019.[17]

The 18th National Seminar on Aerospace Structures (NASAS) was organized by VNIT Nagpur in association with Jawaharlal Nehru Aluminium Research Development and Design Centre (JNARDDC) Nagpur, Aeronautical Research and Development Board (AR & DB), Ministry of Defence, Government of India, New Delhi and Maintenance Command, Indian Air Force, Nagpur.[18]

The institute has academic collaborations with many universities in India and abroad. During 2015 alone, VNIT Nagpur signed 7 memoranda of understanding (MoUs) with international universities and 21 MoUs with national institutions, laboratories and industries.[19][20] These collaborative programmes include student and faculty exchange, internships for students and joint research activities among others. Some of the major universities with an MoU with VNIT Nagpur are:

• Indian Institute of Technology Bombay[21]
• National Institute of Technology, Warangal[22]
• National Institute of Technology Raipur[23]
• National Institute of Technology, Uttarakhand[24]
• College of Engineering, Pune[21]
• Aichi Gakuin University, Japan[25]
• ESIEE Paris, France[26]
• Belarusian National Technical University, Belarus[27]
• Belarusian State University of Informatics and Radioelectronics, Belarus[27]
• New Jersey Institute of Technology, USA
• Beijing Normal University, China[28]
• Hunan University, China[28]
• Southwest University for Nationalities, China[28]
• Jiangshu University, China[28]
• ISAN Medical Institute, South Korea[24]

VNIT Nagpur was one of 12 institutes selected by the MHRD, Government of India, for the BRICS Network University on behalf of India. The institute was identified for the knowledge field ‘Ecology and Climate Change’ and participated in the Indian delegation that attended the Conference of the BRICS held at Ekaterinburg, Russia. A special protocol to the MoU on the establishment of the BRICS Network University was signed by Dr Narendra Chaudhari, Director, VNIT Nagpur.[29]

Departments of the institute are involved in various research projects funded by the Department of Science and Technology (India) and other public and private corporations. VNIT Nagpur has been granted a World Bank assisted technical project for Applied Research in Combedded Systems with the status of Center of Excellence (CoE) under the Technical Education Quality Improvement Programme Phase-II (TEQIP-II).[30] This program includes a grant of Rs. 5 crore. This is one of six National Institutes of Technology centers which have the status of Center of Excellence.

VNIT Nagpur has also partnered with IIT Bombay and the College of Engineering Pune in an R&D project in "Biomedical Engineering and Technology Center Incubation" costing Rs. 39.4 crore.[21]

The institute will soon have a state-of-the-art research laboratory for robotics on its premises as per a pact with the Switzerland-based robotic technology bellwether, Asea Brown Boveri (ABB).[31]

A team from the faculty of Applied Mechanics (structural dynamics and earthquake engineering) at the institute was asked by NGO SEEDS to visit Nepal in the aftermath of the earthquake in 2015 to provide technical support.[32] The team from the department had earlier visited Gujarat when an earthquake struck the state in 2001 and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands in 2004 when a tsunami struck there after a massive quake in Sumatra, Indonesia.[32]

Nagpur Metro Rail Corporation Limited (NMRCL) has joined with VNIT Nagpur for testing facilities and inputs on the metro's structural drawings, inspection and testing of materials.[33]

VNIT Nagpur has adopted nine villages in Amravati, Nagpur and Jalgaon districts under the Unnat Bharat Abhiyan (UBA) aimed at bringing grassroots changes in rural areas through technological interventions from academic and research institutes, without affecting the local culture.[34]

The students club hosts a number of annual events, inviting participants from colleges across the nation. These include:

• Axis, a science and technology festival
• Aarohi, a music and cultural festival
• Consortium, an entrepreneurship summit