Tirupati, Nov 5 (IANS): Two premier educational institutions, the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) and the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER) in Andhra Pradesh's Tirupati have inked an agreement to take advantage of the proximity between them.

"When two eminent institutions are located closely, it is only natural that they join hands to strengthen each other and pool and share their resources so that their combined academic and research strength is much more than they would be individually," said a IIT-Tirupati official.

As part of the agreement, both the institutes will engage in faculty and student exchange programmes, transfer of credits, sharing laboratories and precision scientific research facilities.

They will also share medical facilities, Kendriya Vidyalaya, sports facilities and others.

"The faculty can take up multi-disciplinary joint research programmes and the beginning has already been made by both the institutions collaborating in the development of protective masks against the pandemic," he said.

According to officials, the collaboration is more meaningful at a time when there is a resource crunch everywhere and sharing facilities and creating common research facilities will lead to optimum usage of scarce resources.

These institutes were set up by the Government of India as part of Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Plan, 2014.