Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai

The Tata Institute of Fundamental Research is a research institute and deemed university with its main campus at Colaba in Mumbai. It was founded on 1 June 1945, with Homi Bhabha as its first director and support from the Sir Dorabji Tata Trust; it first worked out of the cosmic ray research unit at the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore and shifted to Bombay that October. The institute comes under the Department of Atomic Energy, through which the Government of India meets almost all of its costs. Its Colaba building, designed by Helmuth Bartsch, was opened by Jawaharlal Nehru in 1962, and it also runs centres in Pune, Bengaluru and Hyderabad.

TIFR's graduate school awards PhD and integrated M.Sc.-PhD degrees in physics, chemistry, biology, mathematics, computer science and science education, plus M.Sc. degrees in some areas of biology. Selection begins with a nationwide written test each December, followed by interviews; biology applicants take the JGEEBILS paper, and some programmes also accept GATE or JEST scores or a CSIR, UGC, DBT or ICMR fellowship. In NIRF 2025 it is ranked 17th among research institutions.