Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science (IACS) is a public, deemed, research university for higher education and research in basic sciences under the Department of Science & Technology, Government of India.^[4] Established on 29 July 1876 by Mahendralal Sarkar, a private medical practitioner, it focuses on fundamental research in basic sciences.^[5] It is Asia's oldest research institute^[6][7] located at Jadavpur, South Kolkata near Jadavpur University, Central Glass and Ceramic Research Institute and Indian Institute of Chemical Biology. It is spread over a limited area of 9.5 acres^[8] and currently in the process of building an advanced SMART campus at Baruipur.^[9]

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Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science

Type	Public research university
Established	c. 1876; 148 years ago (1876)
Founder	Mahendralal Sarkar
Academic affiliation	UGC AIU
Budget	₹162.49 crore (US$19 million) (FY2023–24 est.)[1]
President	Vinod K. Singh
Director	Ranjan Sen
Location	Kolkata , West Bengal , India 22°29′56.09″N 88°22′7.76″E
Campus	Large city
Language	English
Newspaper	Indian Journal of Physics
Website	www.iacs.res.in

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The association is engaged in research in various fields of physics, chemistry, biological sciences, mathematical and computational sciences, materials sciences and various interdisciplinary areas.^[10]

Indian Journal of Physics was founded in 1926. It is published monthly.^[11] Springer distributes print version of the Journal worldwide. The present chief editor of the journal is Prof. Subham Majumdar, who is a senior professor in the School of Physical Sciences, IACS.^[12]

Union Minister of Science and Technology, Dr. Harsha Vardhan unveiled the foundation stone of the Syamaprasad Mukherjee Advanced Research and Training (SMART)^[9] 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.^[13][14]

Starting from 2018, after being declared as a deemed university by MHRD, for academic purposes, departments and centres in the Institute are broadly assigned to six major schools, each headed by a Chairperson (School Chair):

1. School of Applied and Interdisciplinary Sciences (SAIS)
2. School of Biological Sciences (SBS)
3. School of Chemical Sciences (SCS)
4. School of Materials Sciences (SMS)
5. School of Mathematical and Computational Sciences (SMCS)
6. School of Physical Sciences (SPS)

Apart from these six major schools, there are a few centers, designed to perform specific and cutting-edge research, by the institute administration:

1. Centre for Computer Research, Education and Services (CCRES)
2. Director's Research Unit (DRU)
3. Technical Research Center (TRC)
4. Central Scientific Services (CSS)
5. Raman Centre of Atomic, Molecular & Optical Sciences
6. Polymer Structural Unit
7. Energy Research Unit

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.^{[15][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."^[16] The Director's prefix of "Honorary" was dropped in 1953.^[17]

Source:^[67]

Nobel laureate Sir C. V. Raman conducted his work on the Raman effect in this institute.^[71] His work was first published in the Indian Journal of Physics, which is published by IACS.^[72]

At the university, Debashis Mukherjee developed the Mk-MRCC method to account for electron correlations in molecular systems.^{[citation needed]} Another important discovery has been in the area of solvation dynamics of molecules and in particular the dynamics of water molecules around the surfaces of membranes. These experiments performed by Professor Kankan Bhattacharyya provided an insight into the behavior of water near biological surfaces and led to his coining of the phrase "biological water".^{[citation needed]}