17th March 2022
The Centre aims to provide dual degree MPH-PhD and MPH-MTech (Research) programmes, after due approvals, to nurture education and research in the area of public health. The Centre will create a niche for health data science and analytics through close collaboration with the existing world-class computer science and data science departments at IISc.
Quess Corp Chairman Ajit Isaac and wife Sarah Isaac with Prof Govindan Rangarajan, Director, Indian Institute of Science at the MoU signing ceremony to set up the Isaac Centre for Public Health at the IISc Campus
The Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bengaluru, India’s premier institute for advanced research and education, today entered into an MoU with Mr Ajit Isaac, Founder and Chairman of Quess Corp, and Mrs Sarah Isaac, for establishing a Centre for Public Health at the IISc campus.
Mr and Mrs Isaac have committed a sum of INR 105 crore towards setting up this Centre, which will be called the Isaac Centre for Public Health (ICPH), and will be a part of the postgraduate Medical School soon to be established on campus. The Centre will be operational by 2024 and is expected to encourage aspirants to pursue careers in clinical research to develop new treatments and healthcare solutions driven by a bench-to-bedside philosophy.
The Centre is poised to create world-class post-graduate education and research programmes in public health to redefine healthcare models for India and for the rest of the world. It intends to offer dual degree programmes such as Master of Public Health (MPH)-PhD (5-6 years) and Master of Public Health (MPH)-MTech Research (3 years), after due approvals. The total annual student intake is expected to be about 10 per year with a steady-state student population of about 40 over time. The Centre will also host state-of-the-art biomedical research computing infrastructure to host the data, develop and test big data analysis methods tailored for public health.
Commenting on the occasion, Prof Govindan Rangarajan, Director, Indian Institute of Science, said, “There is an acute need for India to have a world class centre for clinical and academic research in public health to be able to make quicker and more impactful strides in realising the goal of quality healthcare for all. The proposed Centre will interface between all the departments of the IISc Medical School, and also other science and engineering departments of IISc in the context of public health research. In particular, the Center will create a niche for health data science and analytics through close collaboration with the existing world-class computer science and data science departments at IISc, putting it on par with international counterparts like the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. We are grateful for such contributions from philanthropic leaders like Mr and Mrs Isaac who make it possible for us to move from aspirations to actually realising our goals.”
Quess Corp Chairman Ajit Isaac and family at IISc during the event announcing the setting up of Isaac Centre for Public Health, slated to be operational in the campus by 2024
The proposed Isaac Centre for Public Health will be located in the IISc Medical School’s Academic and Research block and span one floor spread over 27,000 sq ft. The Centre will be equipped with research labs and computational facilities to cater to the academic and research programmes. In addition to providing courses in statistics, epidemiology, and data science, the students will also get exposed to impactful research leading to a PhD degree or MTech (Research) degree. In particular, the MTech (Research) programme will be tailored towards deep domain expertise in data science, public health data analytics, and AI/ML techniques.
The funding also supports international fellowships for students, scholarships, Visiting Chair Professorships and endowed Chair Professorships. In addition, the Centre will provide funding for carrying out impactful research projects in public health, including bio-surveillance, digital health, as well as mobile-based diagnostics.
Earlier this year, IISc announced the establishment of a post-graduate Medical School and Bagchi-Parthasarathy hospital in its Bengaluru campus in line with global examples of integrating science, engineering, and medicine under a single institution. The Centre for Public Health is an extension of this commitment towards collaborating with like-minded institutions and visionaries who seek to shape the future of healthcare in the country.
About IISc:
The Indian Institute of Science (IISc) was established in 1909 by a visionary partnership between the industrialist Jamsetji Nusserwanji Tata, the Mysore royal family, and the Government of India. Since its inception, the Institute has laid a balanced emphasis on the pursuit of knowledge in science and engineering and applying its research findings for industrial and social benefit. In 2018, IISc was selected as an Institution of Eminence (IoE) by the Government of India, and it consistently figures among the top Indian institutions in world university rankings. According to the QS world university ranking 2022, IISc has secured the top place in the world in the citations per faculty metric, which is a measure of research impact.
About Ajit Isaac:
Ajit Isaac is an entrepreneur and a philanthropist who is a gold medallist and a British Chevening Scholar from Leeds University. He founded Quess Corp Limited in 2007, which is today India’s largest domestic employer. Under his leadership, Quess has accelerated the transition of informal jobs to formal platforms. He also founded the Careworks Foundation, which supports education for about 14,800 students in 61 schools across India. Ajit was nominated for the ‘India Forbes Leadership Award’ in 2011 and was the finalist for the 2016 Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year award. Along with employment creation, the focus area for Ajit has been health & education and he believes that a healthy future for society cannot be the responsibility of the Government alone.
Media Contact:
For IISc – IISc Office of Communications | news@iisc.ac.in
For Ajit Isaac – Zainab Nazim| zainab.nazim@adfactorspr.com | 99957 99242
