In the era when the Indian Institutes of Technology were founded as centres of excellence, IIT Kanpur took the lead in humanities and social sciences education both at the undergraduate and postgraduate levels by integrating these discourses into the engineering curriculum. The study of human sciences plays an important role in the education of scientists and engineers by making their education wellrounded, going beyond specialized training in a particular area of technology and enabling them to think critically for themselves. Often, students are genuinely surprised to find that humanities and social sciences provide alternative modes of cognition and that not all problems of society have a technical solution. Technology, after all, does not exist in a vacuum. It is developed and deployed in a milieu that has both socio‐cultural and economic needs and constraints.

The Department has twenty five faculty members who teach a range of courses in English (Literature, Linguistics and ELT), Fine Arts, Philosophy, Psychology and Sociology. In addition to teaching and thesis supervision, faculty members offer short‐term courses to students and faculty of other educational institutions through workshops and seminars. Research and consultancy projects are also taken up for governmental and non‐governmental organizations. The rich outcome of these research endeavours can be seen in the large number of books and articles published by faculty and students in reputed national and international journals.

Doctoral programmes are available in all disciplines of the department. The successful completion of around two hundred and twenty doctoral theses testifies to the high academic standards that the department has set for itself. Currently, more then hundred doctoral students are registered in the doctoral programmes.