Centre for Research and Development (CRD) is constituted to coordinate research across all academic departments and their thematic research centres of excellence of SRKR Engineering College. CRD has been instrumental in getting SRKR Engineering College recognised as a 'Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (SIRO)' by the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research of the Ministry of Science and Technology, Government of India.

Additionally, all the core engineering departments have research centres which have been recognised by Andhra University, Visakhapatnam and Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University Kakinada (JNTUK). The college has been affiliated to Andhra University since its inception in 1980 until 2020. The affiliation has been changed to JNTUK since 2017 and the first batch admitted under JNTUK affiliation graduated in 2021.

CRD facilitates all stages of research from identification of research topics to funding to the monetisation of IP generated by the research efforts. It also encourages cross-disciplinary research and student mobility to other institutions for research and higher learning. Many young faculty members have been motivated to register for part-time Ph.D. programmes by offering facilities to conduct research within the college.

To become an institution recognised for its cutting edge research and contribution towards society and nation building by offering relevant technological solutions for the most pressing problems faced by humanity.

• To make the academic programmes eventful and fruitful for our students by making research an integral part of their academic pursuits.

• To mould our teaching staff into academic entrepreneurs, capable of creating new, useful knowledge and monetising the same for their personal career advancement as well as institutional growth.

• To use research capabilities for active engagement with Government, Industry and Civil Society and integrate with them through the quadruple helix model of advancing human civilisation.

• CRD shall assist all the academic departments in molding their curriculum to reflect the smooth transition from Science, Applied Science (Engineering), Technology, Design Development, Prototyping to Product launch of various engineering solutions to real problems.

• CRD shall assist all the teaching staff in career advancement by guiding the faculty to pursue their Ph.D. degrees, publish their research work, protect their IP and develop their own research program. CRD shall further assist them to get funding to conduct research and dissemination activities.

• CRD shall endeavor to earn returns for the investments made by the college into research by protecting IP and commercializing it either by licensing or incubating startup companies around the solutions developed by the students and staff of the college.

• CRD shall continuously maintain the accreditation and standards expected for the various research facilities available in the Departmental Laboratories and the Centres of Excellence.

Dr.Penmetsa Appala Rama Krishna Raju, affectionately called Dr.PARK Raju is the first Dean of Research & Development of SRKR Engineering college and has created research infrastructure rivaling the experimental setups found in NIT’s and IIT’s for testing of Water and Wastewater in the WET Research Centre. There is no other Civil Engineering Department in a private engineering college in the state of Andhra Pradesh which has carried out so many funded projects on such issues of national importance as Water, Environment and Land. He has been invited to testify before technical committees of the Central Government on the issues of sharing Water, Environment and Development. His research outputs have been taken into account in making decisions that affect the future of the entire Telugu People. If there is one person in SRKREC known to all local news reporters all the way upto to the Ministers of State Government, it is Dr.PARK Raju.

With the proliferation of engineering colleges and the opening of opportunities to go abroad, outcome based education which is codified in the 12 graduate attributes has become the need of the hour to make our students globally competitive. The old B.E. degrees are long gone and now we only have B.Tech., with the emphasis on ‘application’ of knowledge to solve problems using the latest technology. Dr.PARK Raju has developed 7 Centres of Excellence under the Department of Civil Engineering which have inspired similar initiatives across the college and now the college has 14 centres under the umbrella of the Centre for Research and development. Dr.PARK Raju teaches the ‘state-of-the-art’ in his specialisation through applied research of the discipline for solving local problems with global relevance. All his project students work on field problems.

He has singlehandedly developed research centres and managed staff right from class IV employees to Emeritus Professors with the utmost professionalism and human touch. He has been instrumental in attracting talented and committed staff to the research centres that have created an unparalleled research profile for the college. In spite of being located in a rural environment, with his cooperation, many conferences, workshops and hackathons have been successfully organised by bringing together like minded staff from across departments. With his original idea and determination, he stitched an alliance of IITs and European Organisations and bagged the prestigious H2020 water challenge project titled as SPRING, the only one to be awarded for work in Southern part of India.