The Indian Institute of Science Education and Research-Kolkata (IISER-K) is set to launch a humanities department on its Mohanpur campus in Nadia to widen the pool of elective subjects for students.

Students pursuing the five-year BS-MS (bachelor of science and master of science) degree courses will be able to choose from among humanities subjects such as English, economics, social science, philosophy and psychology from the next academic session beginning in August.

The institute will also launch a BS-MS degree course in computer science from the next session.

IISER-K director Sourav Pal announced the introduction of the humanities and computer science departments while speaking at the seventh convocation of the institute.

Speaking to The Telegraph later, Pal said: “For humanities, we are not offering any degree course. Students pursuing BS-MS courses will be able to study the humanities subjects as their elective papers….

“Full-fledged degree courses in some humanities subjects will be considered later.”

A BS-MS student has to study one elective subject every semester.