The Indian Institute of Technology-Gandhinagar today announced to start a two-year master''s programme (MSc) in cognitive science from July.

The two-year programme is first-of-its-kind being offered by any IIT in India.

Cognitive science is an emerging field which will play a decisive role in the development of next generation intelligent systems, an institute official said.

“The institute has become the first IIT to establish a two year MSc programme in cognitive science, beginning from July 2013. We have received over 500 applications for 15 positions in the programme,” IIT-GN Director S K Jain said.

The stream is interdisciplinary study of cognition, brain and behaviour, philosophy, psychology, artificial intelligence, neuroscience, linguistics and anthropology.

Cognitive science as a stream was launched at IIT-GN two years ago and since then, several studies on it have been undertaken at the institute by doctoral scholars.

“IIT-GN would like to establish itself as one of the centres of excellence in cognitive science, which is accepted as one of the four pillars of knowledge of 21st century along with nanotechnology, biotechnology and IT,” Prof Jaison Manjaly, programme coordinator for the course at the institute, said.