The Department has carried out many research projects, supported by Central and State Government agencies such as DST. MHRD, UGC , AICTE and STEC. Eleven research schemes stand completed, valued at Rs.41.16 lakhs. Two are in progress (Rs.15.5 lakhs), and one is awaiting approval (Rs.15.00). In addition, the Department is also in the process of preparing a major research project in the area of Catalysis, with an estimated financial outlay of Rs.50.00 lakhs.

The Department has conducted several national seminars/symposia, the major ones being, a Seminar and Mass Education programme in Environmental Awareness (1985) and the national Symposium on Current Trends in co-ordination Chemistry(1995). An international Seminar on Theoretical Chemistry is slated for December, 1996.

The Department has over 80 research publications to its credit during the last five years in addition to a few monographs. Twenty nine students have taken their Ph.D. from the Department. Almost the students who had successfully completed the M.Sc.course in Applied Chemistry have found employment in industries, R & D institutions or colleges; some of them have pursued a career in research and have been awarded Ph.D.s . A few of them have also gone abroad and are well settled in industrial establishments, Universities and other Institutions.

The research students of the Department generally get absorbed as scientists in different National Laboratories. Most of the M.Sc. students opt for research programmes in national/international laboratories after they complete their course. Some of them have been absorbed as teachers in Universities and College. So far 3 Ph.D.s and 44 M.Sc. students have passed out. Presently on the rolls are 14 Ph.D and 21 M.Sc students.

The Centre has also organized symposia and lectures, the major one being a national symposium on "Current Trends in Biotechnology" sponsored by UGC(1990)"Popular Lectures in Biotechnology" sponsored by Department of Biotechnology(DBT). Government of India(1993), and a national symposium on "Relevance of Biotechnology in Industry"sponsored by UGC(1995).

The Centre has completed one research scheme(Rs.6.83 lakhs), and presently three are in progress(Rs.23.65 lakhs). The research scheme are : 1 ALPHA 2 Adregenic Receptor in the Brain as link for sympathetic stimulation in diabetes 2. Brain serotonin Receptor Mediator Hypertension and Insulin Function in diabetes. 3. Improvement of marine Algae for Enhanced Agar and Algin production using Tissue Culture Techniques and 4. Studies in Quantitative and Qualitative changes in Gene Expression induced by Salt Stress in the Rice Cultiver Pokkali. The faculty have also been actively contributing to publication of articles in reputed journals. So far, about 20 research papers have being published. One of the faculty has also been selected under UGC Career Award Scheme.

Current research activities of the Department are in the areas of Analysis, Algebra, Operator Theory, Functional Analysis, General Topology, Fuzzy mathematics, Graph Theory, Combinations, Convexity Theory, Fluid Dynamics, Non-linear waves, Stability, Stochastic Processes in general and Random Graphs, Operations Research and History of Mathematics. Seven research projects worth Rs.6.40 lakhs stand completed and one is in progress worth Rs.1.15 lakhs. The students of the M.Sc.(OR & CA) course find ready employment in computer firms and institutions. Students of M.Sc. Mathematics generally take up teaching positions or opt for research.

The Department has organised six national seminars. Refresher courses for teachers of colleges in Kerala and The Southern India Region are also periodically conducted. An International conference on Stochastic processes is to be held during November 1996. The faculty of the Department have so far published about 180 articles in referred journals.

One of the Research Associates of the Department won the "JAN TINGERGEN AWARD" of the International Statistical Institute. One sponsored research scheme is on progress(Rs.0.25 lakhs) and another with an outlay of Rs.3.89 lakhs has been approved.

The Faculty of the Department hosted, The Indian Science Congress-Statistics Section in 1990. National Seminar on Distribution Theory in 1989, National Symposium on Distribution Theory in 1991, and plans to hold an International Seminar on "Statistical methods for Quality Improvement", sponsored by the International Statistical Institute, Netherlands.

The Department has been identified by the University Grants Commission as a Centre for organizing refresher courses of College/University teachers since 1993. Already five courses have been completed and two are scheduled for the current year. The Department is offering consultancy services to various industrial establishments and R and D institutions in the state in reliability and quality improvement, data analysis and planning of surveys. The faculty of the Department have so far published about 63 articles in referred journals. and also two books

The Department has also conducted refresher courses in selected areas for University/College teachers. Till date, about 14 national and six international seminars/symposia have been conducted by the Department. The creditable number of research publications that have appeared in several leading national and international journals of Physics bear testimony to the high level of competence of its teaching and research activities. The Department has more than 1,000 articles and 7 books to its credit.

About 10% of the past students are employed in R & D institutions in India and abroad, 60% as faculty in University Departments/Colleges in the Country and 305 in other areas of employment. The Department also does sponsored research undertakes consultancy work in response to the needs of industry.

Realizing the difficulties in employment generation in industries in general, the School encourages the concept of self employment of the educated but unemployed youth,. To this end, it offers short-term training programmes in entrepreneurship development and small business management, both for manufacturing and services sectors. Also considering the present shortage for management teachers, the School envisages teacher - training programmes in different colleges in the State. It is also proposed to start a series of refresher courses for existing teachers and an M.Phil in Management for prospective teachers.

The research activities of the School, mainly are in the areas of resources management, entrepreneurship development (especially women entrepreneurship), financial services management, human resources management and science and technology management.

During the last 15 years, the Department has produced 128 M.Phil and 38 Ph.D.s in areas such as Industrial Economics, Fisheries Economics, Economics of Technology, Agricultural Economics, Environmental Economics and Service Sector Economics. Currently 46 Ph.D. candidates are working on various topics in the priority areas. Apart from teaching, the Department also undertakes training for college teachers with a view to enhancing their teaching and research capabilities. Conduct of Refresher Courses and Research methodology courses for university and college teachers has been a regular activity of the Department.

Major research projects of the Department are :(a) Economics of the Beach Tourism (UGC) (b) Flexible Socialisation problems , Issues and possibilities (Centres for International Exchange of Scholars); (c) Stock Assessment, Economic Valuation and management of Marine Fisheries in Kerala(UGC) (d) Socio-economic Impact of Small fisheries; a comparative study of India and Malaysia(Association of Commonwealth Universities)

The Department has very well equipped laboratories and workshops to carry out experiments and practicals in fluid mechanics, strength of materials, instrumentation, welding, machining, model making and fitting etc. The Department library has over 6,000 volumes on Naval Architecture,. Ocean Engineering and other engineering subjects, in addition to the 30 periodicals being subscribed to by it. A UNIX based mini computer with 16 terminals and PCs are available exclusively meant for the students of their use in advanced computational techniques and other computer applications.

The society of Naval Architecture Students(SNAS), established in 1981, which is a student body of the Department, with an objective to organize the following activities to (1) advance the interest of students in academics, other than those which form part of the curriculum(2) promote the talents of its members by organizing various cultural and sports competitions and (3) look after the general interests of its members, working in coordination with the teaching staff of the Department.

The Department has already completed sponsored research schemes valued at Rs.5.00 lakhs. Two are presently in progress(Rs.2.00 lakhs) and one is awaiting approval. The department maintains active collaboration and interaction with various Universities in Germany, IIT Madras, and the various shipyards in India, Its faculty has published about 40 articles in journals of repute. Seminars organized include "Current trends in research & Teaching in Naval Architecture " and "Current trends in Design and Analysis of Ship Offshore Structures."

Besides the Ph.D.programme , an M.Tech.course in Computer aided Structural Analyses and Design is offered by the Department from 1995.

Periodically the Department is organizing national seminars to bring polymer scientists, technologists and engineers for academic and research institutions and industrial organisations to a common platform and evaluate the status and nature of manpower training and research activities in the country. A one-day national seminar on "Recent Trends in Polymer Technology" was organized in 1987. A three day national seminar on 'Advances in Polymer Technology' was conducted in February 1991, and another in the series held in February, 1996.

The Department has successfully completed five major research projects with a financial outlay of 50 lakhs, supported by DST, MHRD and the Vokswagen Foundation, Germany. Recently, the MHRD has instituted a Centre for Composite materials in the Department. The project is significant in view of the International School of Composite Materials, the University is establishing in connection with the Silver Jubilee Celebrations. The Department has submitted a proposal to UGC on liquid crystalline polymers.

The Department has organised activities in polymer blends and composite novel compounding ingredients, rubber-bound antioxidants, polymer waste recycling, pollution control in rubber processing units, modified form of natural rubber, interpenetrating polymer networks, and polymer processing. The faculty members have to their credit more than 150 publications in journals of international repute, papers of an international conference organised by the IRI in Cochin. "Success through Technology" were edited by a member of the faculty and published by Allied Publishers, New Delhi.

The B.Tech. and M.Tech.graduates find ready placements in rubber and plastic industries and also in academic institutes in India and abroad. A profile of employment of a typical group of 100 students is roughly as follows : Tyre Units 50% , Non-Tyre Units 10%, Plastic Units 20%; and Academic (Research and Teaching) 20%.

The Department has been receiving active funding support from agencies of the Government of India such as the Department of Science and Technology(DST). India Space Research Organisation(ISRO), Council for Scientific and Industrial Research(CSIR), Department of Atomic energy (DAE), Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), University Grants Commission(UGC) and all India council of Technical Education(AICTE), and also the Kerala State Government for its various research projects.

Appreciating the high quality performance of the Department in research, teaching and infrastructure facilities and realising its potential to attain higher standards comparable to their counterparts elsewhere in developed countries, the UGC sanctioned specials development assistance to the Department, especially for research in Microprocessor Applications and Microwave antennas (Rs.62.5 lakhs) Special Research support was also provided by the UGC and MHRD in the filed of Ocean Electronics (Rs.92 lakhs). For starting M.Sc. Electronics Science course, a sum of Rs.107 lakhs was provided by UGC and DOE, Government of India.

The Department conducts two national symposium as a biennial event. The national symposium series on Antennas and Propagation (ASPYM)" commenced from the year 1988 and the Symposium on "Ocean Electronics" from 1991. The proceedings, of each of the above symposia are also being published by the Department.

The national reputation held by the Department also attracts numerous sponsored research projects, the major ones among which are the following during the course of the last five years (1) High Temperature Superconducting Microwave Integrated circuits (MICs) and Transmission Lines (Department of Electronics, Govt. of India Rs.15.00 lakhs) (2) Computer Aided Design of Transducers (University Grants Commission Govt. of India Rs.7.35 lakhs); (3) Radar cross section Reduction of Targets Using Strip Grating Techniques (University Grants Commission Govt. of India, Rs.5.74 lakhs); (4) Centre for Ocean Electronics (5) ASICs for Image Processing (6) Communication Aid for Speech Impaired; (7) Design and Development of Electronically Scannable 3D Microstrip Antenna Array (Approval awaited).

The faculty of this Department also regularly contribute to research publications in refereed journals, which averages 25 per year, 145 research papers in reputed journals and 1991 symposium papers were published from the Department during the last five years. The Department has the fortune to receive the National Awards for research to two faculty members and also best paper awards and best research work awards. The students passing out from this Department also find a ready employment market. Job profile of the passed out student is roughly as follows : Industry(Electronics) 45% Industry(Computers) 15%; R & D Laboratories 15%; Teaching 10%; Higher Studies 5%; Others/including employment abroad 10%.

This Department has also been working as a resource centre for a project sponsored by the Ministry of Human Resources Development, (MHRD), Government of India known as "Computer Literary Awareness in Secondary Schools"(CLASS), Under this project, Schools in different parts of the State are provided with computers and the teachers properly trained at the Resource Centre.

The Department also conducts short-term courses in areas such as Software Engineering and Computer Networking for the benefit of teachers in College/Universities, under the scheme of Academic Staff Training sponsored by the University Grants Commission.

The Department has organized the first national Conference on Real Time Computing in 1993 with the support of the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE), Government of India. In connection with the Silver Jubilee Celebrations of the University, the Department organised another national conference on Software for Real Time Systems (NCSoRT) in January 1996 in collaboration with the Naval Physical and Oceanographic Laboratory (NPOL) under DRDO, Government of India.

Two research projects are presently in progress in the Department valued at Rs.9.00 lakhs funded by the all India council for Technical Education (AICTE), Government of India. Five sponsored research projects valued at Rs.12.3 million already stand completed. Several of the research results of the Department have been either presented in International conferences or published in reputed journals. Currently active research is being pursued in the areas of High Performance Architecture, networking, Artificial Intelligence, and other related fields.

The Division admitted the first batch of student to the 6-semester regular Master of Computer Applications (MCA) course in the year 1994. The MCA programme is fully funded by the University Grants commission and the Department of Electronics, Government of India. The annual intake of students of the course is 30 of which 505 of seats reserved for candidates who have passed their qualifying examinations from universities outside the State of Kerala.

MCA of CUSAT is designed to train students in frontier areas of Computer Applications, making them suitable for jobs in the highly demanding software development establishments and large industrial establishments with massive computerization programmes The students have sufficient library and laboratory facilities which are being upgraded regularly. With these infrastructural facilities, the MCAs of CUSAT are sure to excel their counterparts from other institutions, naturally, MCA course of CUSAT is one of the most sought after postgraduate professional programmes offered anywhere in India. The competition for general seats of the course is of the ration - 1:200, when the 2nd batch was admitted in the year 1995. The demand is on the increase.

In 1996, the University as a part of the total academic restructuring established the Department of Computer Applications, under the Faculty of Technology.

The Department is actively engaged in research programmes leading to Ph.D., in the area of computer applications : fuzzy mathematics and fuzzy logic applications in artificial intelligence, multimedia development of educational softwares, computer assisted language teaching, and pattern recognition. The Department has undertaken a challenging research project "computer Assisted Classical Music-analysis, Evaluation and Training". financially supported by AICTE.

From this academic year onwards, in view of the high demand for the MCA programme, the Department is admitting and additional batch for MCA under the cost sharing stream. The course curriculum scheme of examination and duration of this courses are the same as those of the regular MCA. And the classes for this course are scheduled to be conducted during evenings and on weekends. Admission to the additional batch is open to all. Total intake is 30 with 3 additional seats for the SC/ST candidates, if any.

The Department proposes to conduct short-term courses and training programme in different area of Computer Applications for High School Teachers, College/university Teachers, researchers and for personnel in industrial establishments.

A project with a financial outlay of Rs. 5 lakhs have been sanctioned by AICTE, New Delhi for a period of two years for the development of a laboratory. The objectives of the project are to take up research and development in the areas of vision, graphics and multimedia and computer animation; to provide training facility to computer professionals through short term and long term courses in these emerging areas; and to develop this laboratory as a nodal Centre for the state needs.

The Centre was elevated to a level III USIC by UGC in 1990. With this the Centre became a full-fledged academic department. The Department started a post graduate diploma course in Instrumentation in 1994. The Department has conducted a number of refresher courses for College/University teachers as well as Technical/Scientific Assistant in College/University. It has also been the venue for National Symposium on Instrumentation once. The Department converting the present diploma course into a B.Tech. degree in Instrumentation.

A number of research projects are in progress in the Centre and the Department. They are on photothermal imaging, ultrasonic methods, photoinduced effects, low temperature measurements etc. These projects are supported by the Department of Science and Technology. UGC in, Department of Atomic Energy. The financial outlay for the ongoing projects is of the order of Rs. 20 lakhs. A few proposals have been submitted to All India Council for Technical Education under the scheme of modernization and Removal of obsolescence (MODROB) and Department of Atomic Energy. The financial outlay for these submitted proposals is of the order of Rs. 25 lakhs. The total number of publications from this centre are; Research Papers; 100, Books; 2. A number of research scholars are working in this Department.

Accordingly, the University had decided to institute an International School Photonics (ISP) entirely dedicated to teaching and research in the field of Photonics and related areas, by delinking these from the Physics Department of the University, ISP thus came into existence in March, 1995. The School is now offering an M.Tech. course in Laser Technology and Optoelectronics, in addition to Ph.D. programmes in the general area of Photonics which includes Laser Technology, fibre optics, laser applications and Photonics theory.

The laser group of the University from which the core faculty of ISP was drawn has been carrying out active research in various aspects of laser technology and its applications during the past eighteen years.

The major milestones of ISP's Laser Divisions are : (a) Design and Development of various laser systems and other laser components; (b) Establishment of fairly advance laboratory with facilities for laser technology and laser-based investigations; (c) Establishment of a Fibre Optics Laboratory and development of some Fibre Optic sensors; (d) publishing a large number of research papers in prestigious journals; (e) Manpower development on laser technology and optoelectronics; (f) Extension of research facilities in this field to neighbouring universities and establishment of collaboration in some areas; (g) Synthesis and characterization of Phosphor materials for photoluminescence and for electroluminiscent displays; and (h) Development of a laboratory for holography and some of its applications.

The Laser Division has already completed four research projects valued at Rs. 37.20 lakhs. Several research projects are in projects are in progress; the major ones being underwater laser beam propagation and detection (Naval Physical Oceanographic Laboratory (NPOL) Rs. 4 lakhs), Generation and characterization of Laser Induced Plasma (Department of Science an Technology (DST), Govt. of India, Rs28.32 lakhs). Some of the major research projects/schemes awaiting approval are Establishing a Centre for Induced Plasma from Rare Earth Compounds (Department of Atomic Energy, Government of India). ISP has plans to start an M. Phil. Programme in Photonics. Collaborative programmes with several laboratories abroad are already under way.