GITAM University's Vice Chancellor, Dayananda Siddavattam, revealed the institution's strategic shift towards research with the establishment of ₹100 crore worth of research centers named 'Multidisciplinary Unit of Research on Translational Initiatives (MURTI)' on its Visakhapatnam and Bengaluru campuses.

Siddavattam addressed the media on Monday, outlining MURTI's objective to foster a cross-disciplinary think tank focusing on regional, national, and global issues to propose actionable hypotheses and measures, subject to testing by experienced working groups, known as goal-oriented research clusters.

He emphasized that the operational MURTI facility in Visakhapatnam is actively engaging with local industries and global pharmaceutical giants like Pfizer.

Additionally, Siddavattam announced the launch of the MURTI center in Bengaluru on February 28, coinciding with National Science Day.

These centers will concentrate on six key areas: basic science, mobility technologies, materials and manufacturing, communication technologies, agriculture technologies, and sensor technologies.

Furthermore, Siddavattam detailed the extensive focus of the Bengaluru center, which will feature 13 modern labs dedicated to various research domains including drone technologies, soil research, geo-spatial research, smart agriculture, nanosensor and biosensor development, software-defined vehicles, photonics, applied electromagnetics, 3D printing design, next-generation connectivity, algebra and geometry, and a quantum info-comm research lab.