New Delhi: An Indo-German Max Planck Centre on Computer Science (IMPECS) was inaugurated at the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi (IIT-D) here on Wednesday by Mr. Prithviraj Chavan, Minister of Science & Technology and Earth Sciences along with H.E. Mr. Horst Koehler, President of the Federal Republic of Germany.

IMPECS will be engaged in collaborative basic research in Computer Science between Indian and German scientists and serve as a bridge between computer scientific communities from both sides.

The Centre will act as a center of excellence for faculty and students from both sides.

The research areas envisaged under the Indo-German Computer Centre would be Algorithms and Complexity, Database and Information Retrieval; Graphics and Vision and Networking.

It would also engage researchers from institutes including Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai; Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur (IIT-K); Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay (IIT-B) and Indian Institute of Technology, Madras (IIT-M) - from the Indian side and Max Planck Institute for informatics (MP-INF), Saarbruecken from the German side.

The Centre is expected to benefit both countries.

The major benefits for India would be further strengthening of the research base in Computer Science that would develop expertise of highest caliber needed by academia and industry.

Germany would benefit through improved collaboration with leading Indian scientists and a highly visible outpost with highly professional environment and large pool of young talent.

The Indo-German Centre on Computer Centre has been set up jointly by Department of Science & Technology (Govt. of India) and Max Planck Society of Germany under the over-all aegis of Indo-German S&T Cooperation programme for an initial duration of 5 years at a total cost of approximately Rs.12 crores from Indian side by DST and approximately 2 million Euros by Max Planck Society from German side.

The concept of setting-up the Indo-German Centre on Computer Science in India was discussed during the visit of German Chancellor to India in October 2007.

Dr. T Ramasami, Secretary, Department of Science & Technology, Prof Peter Gruss, President Max Planck Society, Germany and Prof Surendra Prasad, Director, Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi were the guest of honour during the inauguration function.