The Raman Research Institute (RRI) is an institute for scientific research located in Bangalore, India. It was founded by Nobel laureate C. V. Raman in 1948. Although it began as an institute privately owned by Sir C. V. Raman, it is now funded by the government of India.
Before Raman considered founding a research institute, he had approached the former Maharaja of Mysore seeking land to build office and conference premises for the Indian Academy of Sciences (IAS). The Maharaja acceded to Raman’s request and a 10-acre (40,000 m2) plot of land in the Malleshwaram suburb of Bangalore was allotted to the Indian Academy of Sciences in 1934. However, the Academy (then headed by Raman) made no use of the land for seven years. According to the terms of the deal with the Maharaja, the land could be to another use by the government of Mysore if it still remained unused at the end of 1941.
Raman, as President of the IAS, held an extraordinary meeting of the academy in 1941, and proposed that a research institute (to be named after himself) be built on the land. The proposal was approved and a foundational stone was laid on the ground, signifying that the land was now in use. However, it was not until 1948 that the institute was opened. Raman had planned the institute much before he retired as the head of the Physics Department of the Indian Institute of Science. His idea had been to move directly to his newly founded institute when he retired from IISc. This happened in 1948 – Thus, the Raman Research Institute began under the umbrella of the Indian Academy of Sciences, and both under Raman’s leadership.[3]
Raman had an apparent hatred for writing project reports or having to give periodic status reports to project funders. For this reason, Raman refused to accept any funds from the Indian government and other sources. “He was of the firm belief that science could not be done that way,โ said Prof. N. V Madhusudana, Dean of Research at the RRI and a liquid crystal scientist. As a Nobel Laureate, Raman enjoyed significant respect in Indian public life and was able to raise funds for the institute through private donations and fund-raisers without state involvement. Unashamed of his fundraising, Raman declared: “Our greatest men were beggarsโthe Buddha, Sankara and Mahatma Gandhi.” Raman also found the scrutiny the Government was taking in funding scientific research in the 1950s and 1960s insufficient.
“Till Raman’s death, this was his private research institute. He had a very small group of research students working with him and very few administrative staffโ, said Prof. Madhusudana.
Raman was clear that after his death, the Presidency of the IAS and Director of the RRI could pass to different individuals. Equally the Raman Research Institute should not remain subordinate to the Indian Academy of Sciences but enjoy autonomy and a distinct statutory identity of its own. Just before his death, Raman established a framework for the running of the institute, separating it completely from the Indian Academy of Sciences and giving it statutory autonomy. The Institute adopted the change immediately after Raman’s death in 1971 with the consent of the government, and stepped into a new era as a statutory body, functioning since 1972 on annual grants received from the Department of Science and Technology (DST), Government of India.