Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani – Hyderabad Campus

The road leading up to the academic block from the main gate is called the Marine Drive by the students

This is the area right in front of the Academic Block

The Hyderabad Campus' foundation stone was laid in the presence of the then Chief Minister of the State Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy on 27 April 2007.[7] The institute became a functioning entity in 2008.

BITS also runs a virtual university and an extension centre in Bangalore, Chennai and several important cities of India to cater to the academic needs of Industry.[8]

BITS Pilani, Hyderabad Campus is to eventually have ten centres in order to step up activities in research and development in pharmaceutics, mechanics, computer technology and construction engineering.

Out of all the campuses of the BITS Pilani university, the Hyderabad campus is the one which has taken charge of developing a course for Electronics and Communications Engineering. This is because of the campus's presence in Hyderabad, which is notable for a large talent pool in this area. The Goa campus started offering Electronics & Communication Engineering from the academic year 2017–18.[9]

Since 2005, admission to the Undergraduate programmes to the Indian campuses of BITS has been offered to students based on their performance in the all-India Entrance Examination, called BITS Admission Test (BITSAT). BITS Pilani also has the policy of accepting State and National Board toppers from India. From 2015, the institute also started accepting international students on the basis of performance in the SAT Subject Tests in Physics, Chemistry, and Math II followed by an interview. BITS does not implement any State-based or caste/religion based quotas during admission.[10][11][12]

A panorama of the Academic Block

The college has many R&D projects under its departments. These projects take the form of research-based consultancy, sponsored projects or just independent R&D. Some collaborators include the Science and Engineering Research Council (DST-SERC), the University Grants Commission (UGC), the National Programme for Micro and Smart System (NPMASS), AstraZeneca, etc. The funding for these projects runs into several crores.[13] The campus has a Center of Excellent in MEMS, Microfluidics and Nanoelectronics (MMNE) which is one top academic CoE of its kind in India.[14] The culmination of some of this research has led to the granting of patents to professors.[15]

The foundation stone for the second phase of campus development was laid by the IT Minister of Telangana, K. T. Rama Rao on 20 February 2016.[16] The state allocated additional 75 acres (30 hectares) to the institute to facilitate its phase-II expansion plans making it the largest physical campus of BITS Pilani.[17] The architect for the campus is Hafeez Contractor.

Dark Tranquility performing at Pearl 2011

Pearl is held in March and features competitions in quiz, music, dance and literary events. The first Pearl was held in 2010. The second edition of Pearl in February 2011 was headlined by the Swedish death metal band, Dark Tranquillity.[18] Thurisaz, a metal band from Belgium, performed at Pearl 2012.[19] In 2013, Pearl saw performances by Junkyard Groove, Amplifier and Nikhil Chinappa.[20][21]

ATMOS is the Techno-Management Fest of the campus. The First edition was organized on 26 and 27 October 2012 and featured Paper presentations, Technical competitions and Workshops on various disciplines.[22][23] The next edition was scheduled from 11 October to 13 October 2013.[24] ATMOS aims at improving the technical culture among Indian colleges as well as providing a platform to showcase their abilities. In its eighth year now, ATMOS is growing rapidly with participation from students, academicians, entrepreneurs and speakers from all over India. Each year, a diverse range of challenging and educative Quizzes, Competitions, Case studies, Workshops and Conferences are held, along with interactive sessions with renowned speakers from across the Country.

The fest has also received patronage from the Government initiative Make in India. BITSMUN Hyderabad and Enigma-The National quiz are held during ATMOS and are few of the highlights. The newest addition, the Tech Expo witnessed wide participation from innovators and thinkers from all across the Country.

Arena is the national annual sports festival of the campus. The major tournaments it features are cricket, hockey football, throwball, basketball, badminton, table tennis, chess, carrom, athletics, tennis, volleyball and power lifting.[25]

The first edition of TEDxBITSHyderabad was held on 25 November 2012. There were a total of 12 speakers, including the four student speakers selected by a panel.[26]

Two editions of the Literary fest, Verba Maximus, have taken place until now. The first was in 2012, the second in 2013. The fest offers a host of events, all literary in nature, as well as visits by authors and other notable literary figures. Verba Maximus 2013 saw a visit by bestselling author of the Shiva Trilogy, Amish Tripathi. The fest has traditionally ended with a comedy show. Both editions of Verba Maximus have featured Saurabh Pant.[27][28]

While most of the fest is organised by ELAS, the 2014 version of the fest has seen ELAS collaborating with the Journal Club, the Photography Club, the Hindi Club, Brindavanam (Telugu Association) and the Quiz Club.[29]

From BITSMUN 2011, the first college level Model United Nations Conference in the state BITSMUN 2013 grew into an international MUN conference with over 200 delegates shortlisted from 700 applications.[30]

The Department offers Integrated M.Sc. (Hons.), M.E. Biotechnology and Ph.D. academic degree programs. The department is DST-FIST funded and has received DST-PURSE and DBT-builder grants. The department has 18 faculty members including recipients of DBT-Ramalingaswami Re-Entry fellows, DST-Ramanujan fellows and Wellcome Trust-DBT fellows. The department is currently headed by Professor Nishith Gupta. The faculty members get funding from various government funding agencies in India for performing research in different areas including genomics, molecular parasitology, neuroscience and plant biotechnology.[31]