Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science

The institute is engaged in fundamental research in various fields of physics, chemistry and chemical biology. It is one of the most active research institutes in India and publishes on an average ~ 500 research articles in peer reviewed journals including top journals like Physical Review Letters, Journal of American Chemical Society and Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. Recent interests include research in energy, fuel cells, nano materials like graphene and carbon nanotubes. The institute emphasizes PhD programmes, the degree being provided by IACS itself . There is also full-fledged Integrated PhD programme for post-Bachelor's students. From academic year 2005-2006 it started an integrated PhD programme in chemistry.[7] There are 8 departments in IACS, 4 units and 3 centres namely Materials Science, Solid state physics, Theoretical physics, Spectroscopy, Physical Chemistry, Inorganic Chemistry, Organic Chemistry, Biological Chemistry, Polymer Science unit, Energy research unit, Raman centre for atomic and molecular sciences, Centre for advanced materials, Center for Mathematical, Computational and Data Sciences, MLS Professor's unit and Director's Research Unit. After getting Deemed to be University status by UGC, the department structure has been replaced by School Structure. At present there are six schools namely School of Applied & Interdisciplinary Sciences, School of Biological Sciences, School of Chemical Sciences, School of Materials Sciences, School of Mathematical & Computational Sciences and School of Physical Sciences. There are about 70 working scientists in IACS. One important distinctive aspect of IACS is the presence of a majority of young scientist who are bringing new research areas and directions to IACS. Starting 2018 , IACS has introduced a 5 year Integrated BS-MS course for highly motivated students who have passed their 12th standard examinations . The cutoff for admission to the course remains extremely high , given the very limited number of seats (usually not more than 60) and the students have to undergo an online test followed by an interview. Students with high ranks in JEE Main and Advanced /NEET UG and KVPY are eligible for direct interview. The 5 year integrated course is purely research oriented and aimed at producing world class scientists. The course is one of the most exhaustive of its kind and is suited only for the highly meritorious students.Given the vast number of applications received from all over the country and the very limited seat availability ,the selection rate for this programme is lower even than that of prestigious JEE.

Nobel laureate Sir C. V. Raman did his groundbreaking work in Raman effect in this institute.[10] His work was first published in the Indian Journal of Physics, which is published by IACS.[11]

Apart from the works of C. V. Raman and K. S. Krishnan in Optics, IACS has produced several important paradigms in modern science. IACS has a very strong group in theoretical chemistry and quantum chemistry. Debashis Mukherjee developed the Mk-MRCC method to account for electron correlations in molecular systems which is considered as a "gold-standard" in computational chemistry. Another important discovery has been in the area of solvation dynamics of molecules and particular the dynamics of water molecules around the surfaces of membranes. These experiments performed by Professor Kankan Bhattacharyya have provided a fundamental insights into the behavior of water near biological surfaces and led to the coining of the word "biological water" in the physical chemistry community. Anirban Bandyopadhyay[12], who did his PhD at IACS went on to do research on neuroscience, invented nanobrain[13], developing artificial brain[14]. Later at the Japanese National Institute for Materials Science, Anirban detected quantum states in microtubules[15] that as per Orchestrated objective reduction play a key role in human consciousness.

Union Minister of Science and Technology Dr. Harsha Vardhan unveiled the foundation stone of the Syamaprasad Mookerjee Advanced Reserch and Training (SMART)[16] campus of Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science(IACS) at Baruipur. It will have the facilities for cutting-edge research in multiple disciplines such as fundamental sciences, engineering sciences and medical sciences.[17]

At its inception, the IACS was headed by a President, with the Honorary Secretary responsible for the day-to-day running of the Society. Until 1911, the office of President was de facto held by the Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal, when the Lieutenant-Governor (Governor from 1912) became the co-patron of the Society alongside the Viceroy of India, whose office-holders were automatically Patrons of the Society until 1947.[18][note 1] Following India's independence in 1947, the administration of the IACS was reconstituted, with the designation of "Honorary Director" substituted for "Honorary Secretary."[19] The Director's prefix of "Honorary" was dropped in 1953.[20]