IIT Kanpur in Uttar Pradesh was established in 1959 as one of the first generation IITs. It is among the institutions declared of national importance by the Institutes of Technology Act, 1961, whose text the institute publishes. Under the Kanpur Indo-American Programme it received technical assistance from a consortium of nine US institutions between 1962 and 1972.
The institute overview gives a faculty strength of 570, 58 visiting faculty and a 1,055 acre campus on which nearly all students live. Its NIRF 2026 data submission reported 4,932 undergraduate, 2,038 postgraduate, 2,172 full time PhD and 67 part time PhD students for 2024-25, and Rs 3,634,346,000 received for 1,219 sponsored research projects in 2024-25.