Since its very inception, IIT Mandi has been striving to develop itself into an institution of excellence in education and research keeping in mind the contemporary and future needs of India of the highest standard in engineering and technology. With innovations in both its curriculum and research, the Institute intends to rapidly gain reputation globally. In addition to offering formal Undergraduate and Post-graduate Programs, the Institute actively encourages its faculty and other academic staff to undertake sponsored research and consultancy projects in order to strengthen the research profile of the Institute. Research and development is carried in several areas, like energy, health, environment, manufacturing, telecommunication, nanotechnology, materials, simulation, rural infrastructure and computation. These projects are very important for maintaining external and global linkages and also generate revenue for the Institute.

Office of Sponsored Research & Industrial Consultancy (SRIC) (the office) provides administrative and managerial support for the operation of sponsored research, industrial consultancy and other R&D related activities of the Institute. It facilitates interaction with external agencies, both national and international. It also promotes and manages Institute-Industry interaction and all externally funded research and development projects.

Sponsored Research and Industrial Consultancy are two important modes through which the faculty maintains contact with the frontiers of knowledge and the latest developments in technology. We have entered an era when the products and their technological contents are changing rapidly due to intense competition in the globalized market. Innovations and application of new knowledge have become the key to the survival of industries. The life of a generation of product has been reduced to only a few years and is becoming increasingly shorter. In these times of continuous innovation and fast changing technology the curriculum must also be updated continuously to keep pace with time and research and consultancy projects help the faculty to enrich the curriculum on a regular basis to offer quality education in science and technology.

In order to fulfill its vision to become a leading player globally in the arena of science and technology education and research, IIT Mandi has keen interest in internationalization. A highly focused approach has been adopted for the internationalization by embarking on a strategic partnership with the TU9 Universities in Germany, Norway, Japan, United States of America, France,etc. These partnerships have resulted in long-term research collaborations between the faculty of IIT Mandi and the TU9, NTNU, Kyushu University of Japan, and Missouri S&T USA, and academic cooperation such as exchange of students, joint degrees, etc.