Interview with Dr Sandeep Sancheti
                 Vice Chancellor, SRM Institute of Science and Technology

SRM Institute of Science and Technology won seven awards in the last two months. Can you elaborate on this success achievement?

SRMIST has won not only seven but many more awards in the last two months, the latest being for our contribution in engaging and mobilizing youth to prevent and control HIV/AIDS for the National Aids Control Program. This was awarded by the National Aids Control Organization, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India. But the most important award we received in the last two months is the ‘University of the Year’ award presented by FICCI for our overall performance in Governance, Curriculum & Pedagogy, Infrastructure, Student Employability, Collaborative Initiatives, Research, Patents etc. Some of the other awards that we received are new and have been established for the first time by the Government of India such as the ‘One Student One Tree’ award.

This was given in appreciation for having planted over 50,000 saplings in 26 villages. We are also part of the Swachhata campaign and drives such as “Swachhata Hi Seva” and “Unnat Bharat” programs done through NCC and NSS activities where we were rated best in India by achieving first rank in India in 2019. We also bagged the Clean and Smart Campus Awards with the third rank for implementing digital technologies on our campus. There are about 25 items in this category such as smart street lighting, recycling water, solar generation of energy and many other similar facilities. These awards were attained because of our continuous efforts. One of the other distinguished awards that SRMIST won is the STEM Impact award, a research award given for technology transfer. Only four institutions two from CSRI and one IIT were part of it. We received these distinctions because of the quality of the research undertaken by our faculty and students.