Indian Institute of Space Science and Technology, Thiruvananthapuram

The Indian Institute of Space Science and Technology (IIST) is a government-aided, deemed university located in Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, India, established in 2007 by ISRO under the Department of Space. It is recognized as Asia's first space university and was inaugurated on 14 September 2007 by G. Madhavan Nair, then Chairman of ISRO, with A. P. J. Abdul Kalam serving as its first Chancellor. The institute began functioning at the VSSC campus before moving to a new residential campus near the Liquid Propulsion Systems Centre in Valiamala, Nedumangad, inaugurated in 2009 and operational from 2010. IIST offers BTech, MTech, and PhD programmes in fields such as aerospace engineering, avionics, and engineering physics, along with various specialized MTech and MS programmes. Admissions have historically been through IIT-JEE, ISAT, and later JEE Advanced. The institute is governed under the UGC Act as a “Deemed to be University,” with oversight from a Governing Council chaired by the ISRO Chairman. B. N. Suresh, the founding director, currently serves as Chancellor, while Dipankar Banerjee has been Vice-Chancellor since October 2024, and Kuruvilla Joseph holds the newly created Pro Vice-Chancellor position since July 2025.