Centre for Product Design and Manufacturing (CPDM)’ at Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bengaluru, India, is accorded ‘department’ status and renamed ‘Department of Design and Manufacturing’
With great delight, I share that in its silver jubilee anniversary ‘Centre for Product Design and Manufacturing (CPDM) at Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bengaluru, India, is accorded ‘department’ status and renamed ‘Department of Design and Manufacturing’.
The Department is among the top 3 design schools in India (QS World Rankings) and the youngest among the three by at least 25 years. In terms of number of faculty members in the top 2% list of most impactful researchers in the world (Stanford University Study, 2019-, PLOS Biology), the department is the topmost in Asia and among the top ten design schools in the world. It is privileged to be part of IISc – the highest ranked institution in ‘University’ and ‘Research’ rankings in India (NIRF), and highest ranked in the world in ‘number of citations per faculty’ (QS World Rankings).
Initiated in 1997, its Master of Design (MDes) programme provides holistic education in product design, engineering, development and management, embracing technology, aesthetics, usability and sustainability. It produces some of the finest designers from India, who can identify new opportunities, ideate, develop, and demonstrate working, functional prototypes of solutions. 30% of the final year projects receive patents and a significant number of students initiate their own startups.
Our students continue to win major awards: ‘Red Dot’, ‘James Dyson’, ‘LEXUS’, ‘IEEE IROS’, ‘IEEE ICRA’, ‘ASME ISHOW’, ‘CII MILCA’ etc. In the last 10 years, CPDM produced 1285 publications: 790 in journals, 414 in conferences, all peer-reviewed and Scopus-indexed.
The first PhD programme in design in India, initiated at CEDT, IISc in 1995 continues at the Department of Design and Manufacturing. The department also initiated and leads India’s flagship design research conference series ‘ICoRD’, the ‘National Design Innovation Network’, and India’s first indigenously designed smart factory ‘IISc Smart Factory’. In 2019, it initiated an MTech in ‘Smart Manufacturing. It is unique to have a school of this kind where advanced programmes in both design and manufacturing flourish together!’
The accordance of department status comes as a wonderful gift as we draw close to the year celebrating the 25th anniversary of establishment of the department! With reverence, we acknowledge the debt to the initiators of this journey that took the revolutionary step of bringing the technological and humanistic ends together to create this unique vision of design education in India! Our sincere thanks to the founding team: Professors TS Mruthyunjaya (founding Chair), Pradeep Yammiyavar, B Gurumoorthy, Ashitava Ghosal, Jaywant Arakeri, Satish Vasu Kailas, Dibakar Sen, Mary Matthew, NVC Rao and JE Diwakar!
Please join us in celebrating this moment with the 32nd Distinguished Lecture on ‘Advanced Design and Manufacturing’ by Professor Lucienne Blessing
(https://dm.iisc.ac.in/cpdm/doc/32nd%20CPDM%20DL.png).
Amaresh Chakrabarti
Chair, Department of Design and Manufacturing (Erstwhile CPDM)
