Bangalore: General Motors Corp, global automakers, today announced setting up a new Collaborative Research Lab (CRL) in partnership with the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur to carry out research in areas of electronics, controls and software.

The partners also announced that a new educational curriculum would be jointly developed leading to a post-graduate degree in these fields.

GM has committed Rs5 crore for research to be done in the next five years within the new lab, which will be co-managed by GM’s Indian Science Lab and IIT Kharagpur, GM Research and Development in Warren, Michigan Executive Director Alan Taub told reporters.

The CRL will comprise 16 members drawn from interdisciplinary field with six core members. Research done at the lab will be shared within GM’s research and development network, he said.

“This is the 10th such lab being set up by GM worldwide in partnership with leading research bodies apart from 400 research projects it has jointly undertaken with nearly 200 academic bodies globally,” he said.

GM has been networking with research and academic bodies to gain research insights into various components. This model has been highly successful for GM, Allan said.

“The aim in setting up the lab is to carry out research projects of exploratory nature and to create necessary infrastructure and curriculum for master and Phd programmes as a means of bolstering development of talent required to address future challenges of the industry,” said Prakash Bharati, Director, GM’s India Science Lab.