Centre for Advanced Agricultural Science and Technology (CAAST) is a new initiative and student centric sub-component of World Bank sponsored National Agricultural Higher Education Project (NAHEP) granted to The Indian Council of Agricultural Research, New Delhi to provide a platform for strengthening educational and research activities of post graduate and doctoral students. The ICAR-Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi was selected by the NAHEP-CAAST programme. NAHEP sanctioned Rs 19.99 crores for the project of IARI on “Genomic assisted crop improvement and management” under CAAST programme. The project at IARI specifically aims at inculcating genomics education and skills among the students and enhancing the expertise of the faculty of IARI in the area of genomics. IARI’s CAAST project is unique as it provides a platform to the M.Sc. and Ph.D. students from different disciplines for learning OMICs skills by doing research. The students will be trained at Institutes of International repute. CAAST will organize lectures and training programmes, and develop online teaching resources useful to the student and faculty of NARES.

It will provide opportunities to the students and faculty to gain international exposure. Further, the project envisages developing a modern lab named as Discovery Centre that will serve as a common facility for students’ research at IARI.