Research Revolution - Plaksha's Research Prowess in Shaping a Sustainable Tomorrow

Research and innovation initiatives have a profound impact on our lives. A single personal experience can ignite a spark, a belief that the biggest problems faced by us as a society are not a challenge, but rather an opportunity waiting to be seized.

Plaksha, with its unwavering commitment to nurturing the potential of its students, believes that we are all agents of change.

Epitomizing the spirit of impactful change is the research ecosystem at Plaksha, where we aim to solve the grand challenges around planetary and human health.

Plaksha’s research ecosystem is driving a research revolution focused on some of the most pressing challenges facing society and the planet. From clean energy research and water security to precision agriculture and healthcare, its interdisciplinary research initiatives bring together technology, science, and systems thinking to develop practical, scalable solutions.

"At Plaksha, we've undertaken the task of identifying and addressing the most pressing challenges facing our society. One of these is the imperative to decarbonize our energy sector. The Indorama Ventures Center for Clean Energy is committed to interdisciplinary research and impactful initiatives towards cleaner energy for all."

~Prof Vishal Garg, Director, Indorama Ventures Center for Clean Energy

"Our mission at the Center for Water Security is to ensure sustainable access to clean water in India for the next 50 years. It will be a comprehensive approach covering social, economic and environmental aspects. Social aspects include water requirements for drinking, sanitation and other domestic uses. The economic aspects are critical for agriculture, energy generation and industrial activities. From the environmental perspective, for the overall well-being of our ecosystem, constant monitoring, effective use and conservation of our surface and groundwater sources are imperative. To achieve this mission, our research endeavors will be applied and aimed at providing affordable solutions. Currently, we have identified three focus areas—remedies to address groundwater depletion and pollution, industrial wastewater treatment, and sewage treatment. We will initially work to achieve a circular water economy on the Plaksha campus and in Mohali before scaling across Punjab and India."

~Prof Malini Balakrishnan, Director, Center for Water Security

At CEPH-Plaksha, we aspire to transform the future of healthcare for all in India and beyond by carefully steering our research and innovation efforts to make healthcare equitable through improved accessibility, affordability, sustainability and, more importantly, personalized, patient-centric approaches using integrated healthcare infrastructure and innovative technologies.

To achieve our vision, we aspire to set up targeted research programs involving the following thematic clusters:

• Specific disease-targeted research
• Technology-enabled health solutions
• Smart infrastructure and medical education/training
• Thera-diagnostics: next-generation diagnostics and therapeutics

We are in the process of establishing a collaborative research cluster with Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH), which aims to develop engineering solutions for next-generation diagnostics and therapeutics involving genetics and epigenetics correlated for the Indian population. The overall goal is to improve accessibility, accuracy and sensitivity of novel disease identifiers in femtomolar concentrations.

The Center for Digital Agriculture at Plaksha envisions transforming India's agricultural ecosystem through the development of pathbreaking technologies. It seeks to establish a Plaksha Smart Farm, a living lab for research and innovation.

Our faculty, Prof Shashank Tamaskar and Prof Amruta R Behera, founded AGMitra Technologies to develop sugarcane growth solutions. When STPI (Software Technology Parks of India) organized the Smart Farm Grant Challenge – Stage 2 for a Product Development Grant, AGMitra Technologies won a significant grant for its innovation. By using cutting-edge technologies such as AI-ML, remote sensing and IoT, the model can predict the optimum time for sugarcane harvest, estimate sugar content and identify mature plots.

The Content Team at Plaksha University leads storytelling, blog and website content, social media, newsletters and event coverage and press and media coverage. The team writes about the University's initiatives, academic programs, research, innovation, and the impact created by the students, faculty, and collaborators and in the process offer readers a closer look at the people and ideas shaping the future of technology education.