Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham

Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham (or Amrita University) is a multi-campus, multi-disciplinary, research-intensive private deemed university in India. It currently has 19 constituent schools spread across nine campuses in Amaravati, Amritapuri(Kollam), Bangalore, Chennai, Coimbatore, Kochi, Faridabad, Mysore, and Nagercoil. It's headquarted in Ettimadai, Coimbatore and other 9 campuses are off-campuses of the same university as per section 3 of University Grants Commission Act, 1956. It offers over 300 undergraduate, postgraduate, integrated-degree, dual-degree, doctoral programs in engineering, medicine, management, Architecture & planning, Natural sciences, Ayurveda & health sciences, Agriculture & Life sciences, commerce, Arts & humanities, social sciences, media & communication, law, fine arts and cultural studies. As of 2023, university had a faculty strength of over 2000 and over 30,000 students.

History
The university was founded with the opening of Amrita School of Engineering, Coimbatore at Ettimadai village in 1994 by Mata Amritanandamayi Devi and is managed by her international humanitarian organisation Mata Amritanandamayi Math. On 17 May 1998, Amrita School of Medicine, Kochi along with Amrita Hospital, Kochi was established at Edapally, Kochi and was inaugurated by the then Prime Minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee. In 2003, it became one of the youngest institutes to be accredited as a deemed to be university by the UGC. Later in 2002, two campuses with engineering and business schools were opened, one urban campus at Bengaluru, and one rural campus in Amritapuri village, which also hosts the headquarters of the Mata Amritanandamayi Math that runs the university. In 2019, an engineering school campus was opened in Vengal, Chennai. In 2021, a full-fledged campus at Amaravati city was opened. In 2022, a medical school campus along with Amrita Hospital, Faridabad was inaugurated by the Prime Minister, Narendra Modi at Faridabad, Haryana. In 2024, new campus was started at Erachakulam, Nagercoil by acquiring Sun College of Engineering & Technology campus.

Governance and Administration
Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham is governed and administered under the leadership of its founder and Chancellor, Sri Mata Amritanandamayi Devi, and its Vice Chancellor, Dr. P. Venkat Rangan. The Board of Management includes Swami Amritaswarupananda Puri as President, Swami Abhayamritananda Puri as Pro-Chancellor and Swami Ramakrishnananda Puri as a member.

All campuses are centrally administered with uniformity and all off-campuses are part of same university as per section 3 of University Grants Commission Act, 1956.

Academically, each faculty is led by a Dean, and each school within a campus has a Principal. Under each school, Academic Departments are overseen by Chairpersons, with Vice Chairpersons and Heads managing specific functions.

Administratively, key directorates manage functions such as examinations, admissions & scholarship, accreditation & rankings, patents, communications, ICT & Library services, student affairs, corporate relations, placement, National Education Policy initiatives, online programs, various cells & committees, physical education, and campus planning & development. These directorates are each headed by a director.

Functional portfolios including HR and finance are headed by managers.

Rankings and Accreditation
According to the National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) by the Indian Ministry of Education, Amrita University was ranked 7th among universities, 19th in engineering, 6th in medical, 30th in management, 32nd in Research, 10th in pharmacy, 12th in dental and 15th position in overall category in India for the year 2023.

In the 12th edition of Times Higher Education World University Rankings, Amrita has been placed in the list of 601-800 category. It is also in Top 200 in Young University Rankings 2020 and in Top 90 in BRICS & Emerging Economies Rankings 2020. QS World University Rankings ranked Amrita in band 801-1000 and 168th in BRICS University Rankings 2020. In 2023, Amrita has been ranked among the Top 50 in the world by THE University Impact Rankings. It is also 1st in India.

Amrita School of Business has got accreditation from Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB).

Amrita's B.Tech and B.Pharm programs are accredited by National Board of Accreditation.

Amrita School of Medicine is the first institute in India to get accredited by National Accreditation Board for Hospitals & Healthcare Providers. Also all it's labs are accredited by National Accreditation Board for Testing and Calibration Laboratories. It is also accredited by International Organization for Standardization.

Campuses
As of 2024, the university has nine campuses, with 15 constituent schools in rural and urban sites in five Indian states – Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, Haryana and Karnataka.



Amrita Schools of Arts, Sciences and Humanities
The schools of Arts and Sciences offer Bachelor of Commerce, Bachelor of Business Administration (BBA), Bachelor of Computer Applications (BCA), Master of Computer Applications (MCA) programs and are located at Amritapuri, Kochi, Mysore. Bachelor of Science in Visual Media] (B.Sc.), Integrated M.Sc. in Visual Communication, Master of Science in Visual Communication (M.Sc.), Master of Arts in Journalism and Mass Communication and Master of Arts in Visual Media and Communication (M.A) programs are currently offered at Mysore campus.

Amrita Schools of Business
The school of Business was started in 1996 in Coimbatore campus and currently 6 campuses - Coimbatore, Bangalore, Kochi, Amritapuri (Kollam), Amaravati and Nagercoil has school of business. The schools offers AACSB accredited residential two-year MBA degree program. In addition, it offers a dual degree program leading to an MS in information technology and MBA in collaboration with State University of New York at Buffalo, for working professionals at the Bangalore campus.

Amrita School of Biotechnology
The school was started in September 2004 and offers B.Sc. and M.Sc. in Biotechnology, B.Sc. and M.Sc. in Microbiology, and M.Sc. in Bioinformatics, as well as Ph.D. degree programs. Its research spans a wide spectrum including Cell Biology, Molecular Biology, Cancer Biology, Cell-line Engineering, Wound Healing, Computational Neuroscience, Neurophysiology, Phytochemistry, Biomedical Engineering, Proteomics, RNAi, Analytical Chemistry, Snake Venoms, Sanitation Biotechnology.

The Amrita School of Biotechnology is approved as a Center of Relevance and Excellence (CORE) in Biomedical Technology under the Department of Science and Technology, Government of India, TIFAC Mission REACH programs. The School of Biotechnology was selected by the DBT-BIRAC (Government of India) and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation as one of the top six innovators in India to develop next generation sanitation solutions using bacteriophages and other biocontrol agents.

Amrita School of Communication
The school offers B.A. and M.A. degree programs in Communication for careers in journalism, new media/animation, and short film making and advertising, based on the UNESCO model curriculum.

Amrita Schools of Engineering
The university has schools of engineering in six of its nine campuses, and offers undergraduate, post-graduate and doctoral programs in fields of Computer science and engineering, Electronics and Communication engineering, Electrical and electronic engineering, Artificial intelligence, Mechanical engineering, Civil engineering, Chemical engineering and Aerospace engineering. The Amrita School of Engineering, Coimbatore was opened as private college in 1994 and predates the deemed university by 7 years. Other campuses include Bengaluru, Amritapuri, Chennai, Amaravati and Nagercoil. Admission to B.Tech programs are based on Amrita Engineering Entrance Exam (AEEE), SAT and JEE Main. Admission to the MTech Programs are based on the Graduate Aptitude Test in Engineering (GATE).

The six schools offer BTech, MTech and Ph.D programs in various Engineering disiplines. The Kochi campus school of Nanotechnology offers MTech in Nanomedicine, Molecular Medicine and Nanotechnology and Renewable Energy. The Faridabad campus school of health sciences offers MTech in Artificial Intelligence and Medical Engineering.

Amrita Health Campuses
Amrita has two healthcare campuses in Kochi and Faridabad attached to the Amrita Hospital, Kochi and Amrita Hospital, Faridabad, super-specialty hospitals in India. It contains schools of medicine, dentistry, health sciences, nursing, pharmacy, Ayurveda and psychology. Kochi hospital with 1300-beds is the university's healthcare initial campus. A second medical school and 2,000 bed hospital campus was set up in Faridabad on 2021. The Amrita Schools of Medicine, Dept. of Hospital Administration provide MHA (Masters in Hospital Administration), MBBS, Bachelor of Science (Nursing), undergraduate/graduate pharmacy programs, MS, MD and Bachelor of Dental Surgery degree programs.

The School of Medicine offers graduate programs including M.Sc. in disciplines, Diplomate of National Board (DNB), and PhD. In 2008, the first batch of MBBS students graduated with A. P. J. Abdul Kalam presiding over the graduation ceremony.

Online Amrita Ahead
In 2021, the university introduced various online degree programs under the brand name Amrita AHEAD. The online programs are UGC entitled. Some of the prominent online programs include Master of Business Administration, Master Computer Applications, Bachelor of Computer Applications. Other programs launched by Amrita AHEAD are Bachelor of Business Administration, Bachelor of Commerce in International Finance & Accounting and MCOM International Finance and Accounting (Benchmarked with CPA, USA)

Notable alumni

 * Muhammed Muhsin, Politician - Communist Party of India
 * Lijomol Jose, Indian actress
 * RJ Balaji, Indian RJ and commentator