Centre of excellence on real estate planned

The ISB is planning to setup a centre of excellence to study the Indian real estate sector and to build knowledge databases for professional management of the industry.

The B-school already has five centres of excellence for Analytical Finance, Logistics and Manufacturing, Information Technology, Leadership and Entrepreneurship Development. The centre on finance was setup with a corpus of around Rs 48 lakh, while the centre on IT was funded by Rs 35 crore over five years. The institute expects similar funding for the real estate centre.

“We have been thinking about the centre for three years and though we are yet to setup the research centre, but some research activities on affordable housing for the urban poor and sustainable housing for all, have been started,” said an ISB spokesperson. The centre will be setup once economic conditions stabilise.

The school is in talks with a Hyderabad-based realty company for funding. Real estate will be offered to students as an elective and not as a core subject.

“Students are looking at more activity and research in real estate. Though the student involvement is low because the centre is yet to kick off, we all are excited about this, “ said Rajeev Ramprakash, president, real estate and infrastructure club at ISB.