India is experiencing one of the most wide-ranging social transformations in history. From a predominantly rural landscape, India is forging rapidly towards a more urban society.
IIHS academic programmes are designed to tackle these challenges and address the needs of all the stakeholders with wisdom and sustainability. When fully developed this will involve four linked elements:
- An integrated interdisciplinary professional undergraduate degree programme (BUP)
- A specialised interdisciplinary professional graduate degree programme (MUP) with multiple concentration areas
- A research-based doctoral programme
- A preparatory programme for disadvantaged learners to enter the IIHS
- A bridge programme to enable lateral entry from other programmes
Scholars at IIHS are expected to enable transformation through creative methods and equip the new India for the future. India needs professionals whose know-how in several disciplines, ranging from engineering to the social sciences and to art and architecture, will help shape unique solutions to the anticipated social problems. With this goal in mind, an integrated interdisciplinary academic programme has been developed, that draws upon global best practices from three clusters of conventional disciplines:
- Technology, Planning and Design
- Management
- Law & Governance
- Environmental Sciences
- Social Sciences
- Culture, Performing and Fine Arts and Media
The primary objectives of IIHS are to create for human settlements professionals, practitioners and researchers from India and others parts of the world:
- An interdisciplinary, innovation-oriented knowledge base that covers the transformatory opportunities and challenges of the South Asian and international settlements in the 21st century.
- A quality, application-oriented and experiential learning environment that reaches out, through and beyond its open campus, to India and other parts of the world.
- A set of opportunities for inclusion, integrated human development and engagement with Indian Constitutional values.
- Opportunities to
- evolve the technical, integrative and theoretical capacities to design, develop and use the most appropriate technologies, infrastructure and management systems from around the world;
- assist in engendering technical, institutional and social innovation, sustainability and good governance;
- respond to contemporary and emerging challenges drawing on both disciplinary and indigenous knowledge;
- to serve as a platform for dialogue between the state, private and civil society sectors and citizens, especially the most vulnerable;
- be uniquely rooted in South Asian culture, arts and craft, languages and scholarship and thereby set global standards for praxis, education and research.
- develop avenues for the deepening of the pedagogical and reflective capacities of the faculty to transact an integrated, interdisciplinary programme to meet these transformative goals.
The MUP curriculum has been designed to reflect IIHS’ engagement with urbanisation and its interdisciplinary approach to problem solving. Consequently, this learner-centric programme focuses on enabling the integral development of learners, i.e. educating empowered agents who can engage critically and constructively with complex real world concerns. It aims to impart appropriate skills, understanding, knowledge and critical perspectives; their application to multidisciplinary and multi-level problem solving, innovation and reflective praxis; alongside a commitment to excellence, core ethical principles and broad Indian Constitutional values.
IIHS envisions the education of a new kind of urban practitioner equipped with a set of capacities, sensibilities and perspectives that allows her to bridge the contemporary divide between theory and praxis. IIHS will offer four degrees in Urban Practice:
| Academic Programme | Degree | Degree | Length (years) |
| Undergraduate | Bachelors in Urban Practice | BUP | 4 |
| Graduate | Masters in Urban Practice | MUP | 2 |
| Graduate | Integrated Masters in Urban Practice | IMUP | 4+1 |
| Doctoral | PhD in Urban Practice | PhD | 2+2 |
