Nokia Chair Professorship

About

Nokia Chair Professorship was established in 2025, with an endowment from Nokia Solutions and Networks India. The Chair will be awarded to distinguished faculty conducting frontier research in the broad area of Artificial Intelligence & Communications in the Division of Electrical, Electronics & Computer Sciences (EECS) and will be appointed for a period of 3 years.

Nomination Procedure

• The Chair position would be awarded to a nominated Professor with stellar performance, from the Division of EECS or allied areas such as Computational and Data Sciences and Cyber Physical Systems at IISc, who has completed at least three years of service at the Institute as a Professor, doing research in in the broad area of Artificial Intelligence & Communications.
• The selection process will follow established procedure in the Institute. The national selection committee for this purpose will be headed by the Dean of EECS Division of IISc (or another Dean assigned by the Director IISc), and will include two distinguished experts external to IISc, at least one of whom is from Nokia.
• Each term of the award is three­ years.
• Additional terms could be awarded (in exceptional cases) to the same candidate faculty (if the faculty member is nominated again) based on the recommendation of the selection committee. The nominee will be awarded the position for the duration of three years by the approval of the council of the Institute.

Benefits

• The selected incumbent will occupy the Chair for a period of three years. A monthly top-up salary and an annual research grant will be provided, with the quantum of support being proportional to the faculty’s position.
• The Chair Associate Professor/Professor will be required to submit a brief annual report to the Director, IISc on the research activities conducted with the financial support received.

Responsibility

The selected faculty member is expected to be

1. actively engaged in research and academic activities at IISc and with academia ecosystem in and outside India,
2. engage with the industries (any) and contribute to a strong research and development ecosystem around the Institute,
3. participate in outreach, standardization and professional/government policy related activities relevant for his/her research and adjacent domains, and
4. mentor employees and stakeholders identified by Nokia to establish strong connections with related/relevant groups/ departments/ domains within IISc and academia to broaden IISc-Nokia-academia collaboration in India through established channels of IISc, Nokia and overall academia in India. However, all intellectual property (IP) arising out of the work of the Chair Professor will be dealt with, as per the provisions of the IP Policy of the Institute.