Chennai Mathematical Institute

Chennai Mathematical Institute is a centre of excellence for teaching and research in the mathematical sciences. It was founded in 1989 as a part of the SPIC Science Foundation, funded by the SPIC group in Chennai. Since 1996, it has been an autonomous institution.

CMI is managed by a Governing Council consisting of eminent persons. Today, CMI is a rare example of public-private partnership in research and education in India. The Institute receives major private funding, side by side with substantial financial support from the Government of India.

The main areas of research at CMI are Mathematics, Computer Science and Physics. In addition to a vibrant PhD programme, the Institute conducts BSc programmes in Mathematics and Computer Science as well as Mathematics and Physics, along with MSc programmes in Mathematics, Applications of Mathematics and Computer Science.

The research groups in Mathematics and Computer Science at CMI are among the best known in the country. A research group in Physics is being set up. The Institute has nurtured an impressive collection of PhD students.

The main areas of research in Mathematics pursued at the Institute are algebra, analysis, differential equations, geometry and topology. In Computer Science, the main areas of research are formal methods in the specification and verification of software systems, design and analysis of algorithms, computational complexity theory and computer security. In Physics, research is being carried out mainly in quantum field theory and mathematical physics.

CMI's goal is to evolve into an institution on the lines of the great universities in Europe and USA. These institutions, founded on a tradition of learning and scholarship over the past few centuries, attract students by the presence of outstanding academic persons on their faculties.

Excellence in research and teaching go together. Faculty who are research oriented can present the material they teach from fresh perspectives. This gets students involved in the process of scientific discovery and opens the eyes of bright young minds to the joy of doing science.

The teaching programme at CMI began in 1998, when the Institute arrived at an arrangement with the Madhya Pradesh Bhoj Open University (MPBOU), Bhopal, to offer accreditation for a BSc Honours course in Mathematics and Computer Science at CMI. In 2001, the BSc programme at CMI was augmented to include separate MSc programmes in Mathematics and Computer Science. In 2003, CMI expanded its BSc programme to include a course in Physics.

Students who have graduated from CMI have pursued higher studies at the most prestigious institutions around the world: Caltech, Chicago, Johns Hopkins, MIT, Princeton, Rutgers and Yale in USA, the Ecole Normale Superieure, the Ecole Polytechnique, the University of Paris-Sud and the University of Bordeaux in France, the Max Planck Institutes in Saarbruecken and Bonn in Germany, ETH in Zurich, not to mention CMI, IMSc, HRI, TIFR, IITs, ISI and other institutions in India.

The teaching programme at CMI has benefitted greatly from the active participation of faculty from the Institute of Mathematical Sciences, Chennai (IMSc). CMI also attracts visiting faculty from other research institutes around the country, many of whom stay for a semester to teach courses and participate in the research activities of the Institute.

CMI has a regular exchange programme with the Ecole Normale Superieure (ENS) in France. ENS is one of the leading academic institutions in the world, with an admission procedure that is as selective as that of the IITs. Alumni of ENS have gone on to win eleven Nobel prizes and seven Fields Medals (the equivalent of the Nobel Prize in Mathematics). Each year, the two top-ranking senior BSc students from CMI spend the summer at ENS working on research problems with faculty there. In return, four PhD students from ENS visit CMI each year to participate in research and teaching.