CSIR Fourth Paradigm Institute
The CSIR Fourth Paradigm Institute (CSIR-4PI) is a constituent laboratory of Council of Scientific & Industrial Research (CSIR), Ministry of Science and Technology, Government of India, with a mandate to provide the country a unique positioning in the domain of computational, data intensive research and discovery. History. In the late 1980's, the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) recognized the growing significance of Mathematical Modelling and Computer Simulation, as it became evident that modelling approaches were critical for illuminating the structure and evolution of complex systems that were invading the areas of scientific analysis and  technological design. Fields like Geology and Biology, which for a long time was considered largely observational and qualitative had already begun to exploit the new possibilities, offered by Mathematical Modelling and Computer Simulation to grow new areas of computational geology and computational biology. The Council therefore established in 1988 the "CSIR Center for Mathematical Modelling and Computer Simulation", briefly called C-MMACS (pronounced as seemax) in the Belur Campus of the National Aerospace Laboratories (NAL), Bengaluru. On February 21, 2013, CSIR-CMMACS was repositioned as the nucleus of CSIR-Fourth Paradigm Institute (CSIR-4PI), as it would provide the country a  unique positioning in the domain of computational, data intensive research and discovery. The institute is located in the Belur Campus of the CSIR National Aerospace Laboratories (CSIR-NAL), Bangalore. The policies and programmes of the centre are approved and monitored by a high level Advisory Committee comprising members drawn from various Academic, R&D and Industrial Institutions. Today, CSIR Fourth Paradigm Institute (CSIR-4PI) is a young and vibrant organization committed to promoting mathematical modelling and data-driven research culture across CSIR and accelerating the pace of discovery in the areas of interest to CSIR. CSIR-4PI played a pivotal role in shaping  up the computational research capability in CSIR over the past 30 years and has the same potential to impact the emerging data science research to solve problems of societal and strategic importance. The current mandate is to develop reliable knowledge products for decision support in Earth, Engineering and Information sciences as well as to host a centralised supercomputing facility for CSIR. Long term vision is to synergize the strong expertise in various disciplines across CSIR and build a unified platform that embodies a rich set of big data enabling technologies and services with optimized performance to facilitate research collaboration and  scientific discovery. Structurally CSIR-4PI is divided into two distinct scientific divisions with the scope of interdisciplinary research viz., Data Science and Supercomputing Division (DSSD) and the Earth & Engineering Sciences Division (EESD). The current Head of the Institute is Dr. Sridevi Jade. Research Activities. Data Science and Supercomputing. The newly formed Data Science and Supercomputing Division (DSSD), is proposed to grow with two objectives. One is to build on its rich expertise of providing CSIR centralized cyber infrastructure and research in cyber security & privacy. Some of the notable achievements are (i) hosting one of the largest supercomputing facility (ii) receiving largest  industry donation (about Rs. 15cr) from AMD Inc. to host a super computing system exclusive for COVID19 research (iii) cyber security test bed which gave first time demonstration of malicious attacks and also led to development / experimental deployment of Darknet (iv) next generation Internet Protocol engineering (v) AI based lightweight security algorithms for connected vehicles which is still a futuristic proposition in India. The team has several patents and high impact publications to their credit. The plan is to strengthen them further with applications of strategic and societal importance using data driven approaches. The second objective is to expand the  capacity to implement data science research, industry collaborations and the availability of cutting-edge computational tools in a domain agnostic manner. Few activities were initiated recently to develop framework for deep learning based time series analysis with the help of in-house domain expertise in earth sciences. However, the long term objective is to make this activity a horizontal cutting across all the theme verticals of CSIR, by expanding the team by recruiting more trained manpower. Earth & Engineering Sciences. The Earth & Engineering Sciences Division (EESD) at CSIR-4PI is recognised as a leader at national level and competing at international level  for its multi-dimensional high impact studies of the earth system covering all the four geographic spheres for over three decades. CSIR-4PI pioneered in Global Positioning System (GPS) based geo-science research in India since 1994, when GPS was made fully operational. CSIR-4PI were the first to give both neo-deterministic and probabilistic seismic hazard map for Indian Sub continent. Forecasting of high impact hydro-meteorological disasters in the context of urbanization and land use change is an important activity at CSIR-4PI. Another impactful activity is the study of various aspects of climate change using mathematical modelling, data analytics, space -based geodesy etc. and its impact on rainfall, agriculture and health hazards specific to Indian sub-continent. Understanding different factors influencing the variation in the Indian Summer Monsoon and quantifying them is an active area of research of the institute. Studies on carbon cycle in ocean, atmosphere and land adds one more dimension in the context of the Paris climate agreement by providing robust carbon flux estimates that can help addressing gaps in atmospheric carbon cycle research. Most of these studies are supported by highly sophisticated observational infrastructure of the Institute such as GNSS network, broadband seismic network, GHG observation  network (WMO standard) being operated in collaboration with several research and academic institutes across the county for past three decades. In fact the institute established IGS (International GNSS Service) station at Bangalore in 1994 which serves as a reference station for all the crustal deformation research in the country. These activities resulted in high impact scientific publications and citations indicating the global relevance of the research. Some of the notable outcomes of these studies are (i) Indian reference frame definition and estimation of precise surface crustal motion of Indian tectonic plate (ii) estimation of slip along major faults and crustal  strain rates along seismically active boundaries and plate interiors (iii) site specific microzonation maps for Delhi, Ahmedabad, Bangalore and Srinagar cities . earthquake (iv) quantification of extreme events such as heavy rainfall, heat waves, cyclones etc. (v) calculation of the atmospheric loading of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and methane over time (vi) influence of aerosol-cloud interactions on the sub seasonal variation of Indian summer monsoon rainfall (vii) enhancement of the quality of livelihood opportunities and resilience for the people in the Indian Himalayas (viii) temperature dependent transmission potential model for chikungunya in India and several other achievements. The  team received several prestigious national (CSIR Bhatnagar, National Mineral/Geoscience), state (CV Raman etc..) and young scientist (CSIR, INSA) awards for these works. Certainly there is a need to strengthen this niche expertise considering its huge societal benefit and CSIR-4PI is committed to sustain its leadership role in the years to come. Academics. CSIR-4PI AcSIR Programme. CSIR-4PI has an active research program leading to Ph.D. degree in a multitude of arenas.  It provides a stimulating atmosphere, which fosters creativity and encourages innovative thinking and research.  The PhD program consists of flexible course work, computational training tutorials and a research proposal  to demonstrate attainment of a high degree of scientific ability which is followed by advanced research leading to a PhD thesis on a specific topic. The PhD program is normally completed in 4-5 years. During the first year, the students have to go through a course work covering basic and advanced topics. The students are encouraged to take courses in inter-disciplinary areas. As part of the PhD program, the PhD student is expected to give at least two seminars. Student Programme for Advancement in Research Knowledge (SPARK). SPARK is intended to provide a unique opportunity to bright and  motivated students of reputed Universities to carry out their major project/thesis work and advance their research knowledge in mathematical modelling and simulation of complex systems. The programme is intended to increase the interaction between scientists and faculty members of academic institutes along with their students towards a long term research collaboration.