Chennai Mathematical Institute is a centre of excellence for teaching and research in the mathematical sciences. It was founded in 1989 as a part of the SPIC Science Foundation, funded by the SPIC group in Chennai. Since 1996, it has been an autonomous institution.

CMI is managed by a Governing Council consisting of eminent persons. Today, CMI is a rare example of public-private partnership in research and education in India. The Institute receives major private funding, side by side with substantial financial support from the Government of India.

The main areas of research at CMI are Mathematics, Computer Science and Physics. In addition to a vibrant PhD programme, the Institute conducts BSc programmes in Mathematics and Computer Science as well as Mathematics and Physics, along with MSc programmes in Mathematics, Applications of Mathematics and Computer Science.

The research groups in Mathematics and Computer Science at CMI are among the best known in the country. A research group in Physics is being set up. The Institute has nurtured an impressive collection of PhD students.

The main areas of research in Mathematics pursued at the Institute are algebra, analysis, differential equations, geometry and topology. In Computer Science, the main areas of research are formal methods in the specification and verification of software systems, design and analysis of algorithms, computational complexity theory and computer security. In Physics, research is being carried out mainly in quantum field theory and mathematical physics.

Teaching

Teaching
BSc Programme
MSc Programme
PhD Programme
Course Details
CMI's goal is to evolve into an institution on the lines of the great universities in Europe and USA. These institutions, founded on a tradition of learning and scholarship over the past few centuries, attract students by the presence of outstanding academic persons on their faculties.

Excellence in research and teaching go together. Faculty who are research oriented can present the material they teach from fresh perspectives. This gets students involved in the process of scientific discovery and opens the eyes of bright young minds to the joy of doing science.

The teaching programme at CMI began in 1998, when the Institute arrived at an arrangement with the Madhya Pradesh Bhoj Open University (MPBOU), Bhopal, to offer accreditation for a BSc Honours course in Mathematics and Computer Science at CMI. In 2001, the BSc programme at CMI was augmented to include separate MSc programmes in Mathematics and Computer Science. In 2003, CMI expanded its BSc programme to include a course in Physics.

From 2007, CMI has begun awarding its own degrees as a university under Section 3 of the UGC Act, 1956. The undergraduate and graduate programmmes at CMI are overseen by the Academic Council. The academic content of these programmes is determined by the Boards of Studies for Mathematics, Computer Science and Physics..

Students who have graduated from CMI have pursued higher studies at the most prestigious institutions around the world: Caltech, Chicago, Johns Hopkins, MIT, Princeton, Rutgers and Yale in USA, the Ecole Normale Superieure, the Ecole Polytechnique, the University of Paris-Sud and the University of Bordeaux in France, the Max Planck Institutes in Saarbruecken and Bonn in Germany, ETH in Zurich, not to mention CMI, IMSc, HRI, TIFR, IITs, ISI and other institutions in India.

Applying to CMI

The entrance exam for 2024–25 admissions will be held on Sunday, 19 May, 2024 at 14:00.

Applications for 2024–25 admissions will open around 1 March, 2024. Further details will be announced by February, 2024.
For all programmes other than Ph.D. Physics, applicants will have to take an entrance examination. The entrance examinations for 2024-25 will take place on 19 May, 2024 at centres across the country. The list of cities for the 2024 entrance examination will be announced shortly. The 2023 exams were held at the following locations.

Agartala, Ahmedabad, Allahabad, Bangalore, Bhubaneswar, Calicut, Chandigarh, Chennai, Cochin, Coimbatore, Durgapur, Goa, Guwahati, Hyderabad, Imphal, Indore, Jaipur, Jammu, Kanpur, Kolkata, Madurai, Mumbai, Nagpur, New Delhi, Noida, Paschim Medinipur, Patna, Pune, Raipur, Ranchi, Shillong, Silchar, Siliguri, Srinagar, Tiruchi, Trivandrum, Visakhapatnam
For Ph.D. Physics, candidates should write the Joint Entrance Screening Test (JEST). There is no separate CMI entrance examination for Ph.D. Physics.

Selection for all Ph.D. programmes will involve an interview for shortlisted candidates. For all other programmes, interviews will be at the discretion of the Admissions Committee—the Committee may call shortlisted candidates for an interview depending on their prior academic record.

Placement

Students from CMI have gone on to pursue further studies at the best academic institutions in India and abroad. These include Berkeley, Caltech, Chicago, Cornell, Harvard, MIT, Penn, Princeton, Stanford and Yale in USA, ENS-Paris, Univ Paris-Sud and Univ Bordeaux in France, the Max Planck Institutes and Humboldt University in Germany and IITs, IISc, IMSc, ISI and TIFR in India. Several CMI alumni are now faculty members at leading academic institutions in India, including IISc, IISERs, IITs, IMSc, ISI and TIFR, not to mention CMI itself. Students from CMI are also much sought after by industry across a variety of sectors, including software development, semiconductors, investment banking, analytics and healthcare. CMI’s campus placement programme has an excellent track record. Typically, all students seeking jobs through campus placement are placed, with average pay packages exceeding Rs 17 lakh per year in 2022. More details are available at Several CMI alumni have also founded startups in India and abroad.

Fees and scholarships

For details about fees and scholarships, please look up the Information Brochure or the pages with more detailed information about the BSc and MSc programmes.

The tuition fee is Rs 1,25,000/- per semester (two semesters in a year). About 30–35 scholarships will be available, consisting of a full waiver of the tuition fees for three years. In addition,
a limited number of fellowships will be available, with a monthly stipend of Rs. 5,000. After the first year, continuation of the monthly stipend will depend on satisfactory academic
performance.
CMI is committed to a policy of financial inclusion and strives to ensure that no student is denied an opportunity to study at CMI due to economic circumstances. Towards this goal, partial and total tuition fee waivers will also be available, based on the financial background of the student. An annual family income of Rs 8 lakh or less qualifies for a 100% waiver and an annual family income of Rs 12 lakh or less qualifies for a 50% waiver. Financial assistance requests are processed after admissions are finalized.

Library

Welcome to the Chennai Mathematical Institute Library.

A detailed list of Journals available at our library is available online. For each journal, this list contains information about the specific volumes that are available.

Apart from this, you may access information regarding the books available at our library.

To search our online catalogue use the link below.

On days when there is a 3:00 pm talk, a tempo traveller will start from the Madhya Kailash junction (near the Kasturba Nagar MRTS station), at 1:45 pm. This tempo traveller will halt at the Institute of Mathematical Sciences (IMSc) gate and leave for Siruseri at 2:00 pm.

On days when there is a 4:30 pm talk, a tempo traveller will leave from the Madhya Kailash junction at 3:00 pm and from the IMSc gate at 3:15 pm.

The buses will go on the East Coast Road and will join the old Mahabalipuram road at Shollinganallur, en route to Siruseri.