Himalayan Institute for Contextual Sciences
Rooted in context.
Open to the world.
Nepal spans 60m to 8,848m — one of the world's most extreme altitude gradients. Almost none of it has been systematically measured. HICS is building the instruments and generating the open data to change this.
Right now
- Registered Himalayan Institute for Contextual Sciences Pvt. Ltd. · Lalitpur · 2026
- KTM-001 live IESH v0 logging in Kathmandu · 1,350 m
- IESH v0.1 field testing sensors · offline logging · onboard learning portal
- DLP-001 installing thermal sensor array · Crystal Mountain School, Dolpo · 4,000 m
- Muon detector bench development for the altitude-flux network
- Ahead school station network · planetarium · radar
Live instrument data
KTM-001
Kathmandu Valley
27.69°N 85.32°E · 1,350m asl
DLP-001
Crystal Mtn School
Dho Tarap, Dolpo · 4,000m asl
Temperature (°C) · 24h
KTM 1,350m
DLP 4,000m
±0.5°C
PM 2.5 (µg/m³) · 24h
— WHO 15 µg/m³
±10% · WHO 24h limit: 15 µg/m³
→ Full data dashboard and CSV downloads
Physics-based simulator data while field hardware is being deployed — will update automatically when instruments come online.
About HICS →
Station network
Active
Planned (Environmental)
Planned (Muon Detector)
7 stations in network · Nepalgunj–Dolpo muon transect planned · open data from day one
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readings
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quality ok
since
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The gap in the data
Nepal sits at the intersection of some of the most important scientific questions of our time — atmospheric pollution, seismic hazard, climate adaptation, cosmic ray physics. It is also one of the most under-instrumented countries on Earth.
HICS is building the measurement infrastructure to change this.
Atmospheric monitoring
From the Terai at 60m to the high Himalaya above 8,000m, Nepal's air is almost entirely unmeasured. Pollution from the Indo-Gangetic Plain crosses these mountains every winter. We don't know what reaches altitude, how it changes on the way up, or what it does to the people and ecosystems living there.
Cosmic ray flux
Systematic measurement of cosmic ray muon flux across Nepal's altitude gradient — 60 m to 5,000+ m — using custom scintillator-SiPM detectors.
Building performance
Heating a school at 4,000m without imported fuel means designing for this altitude, this sun angle, these materials. The empirical thermal data for this doesn't exist anywhere in Nepal. Crystal Mountain School in Dolpo has 20 sensors embedded in its structure during construction — the first long-term building thermal dataset at high Himalayan altitude.
Instrumentation & measurement infrastructure
In progress
In progress
All-Sky Meteor Camera
Nepal's first contribution to the Global Meteor Network (GMN). Wide-field camera for meteor detection, trajectory triangulation, and spectroscopy from Himalayan skies.
In progress
Cosmic Ray Muon Detector
Nepal's first locally manufactured cosmic ray muon detector. Based on the CosmicWatch v3X open-source architecture, adapted for Himalayan conditions. Altitude-gradient measurements from the Terai (~150m) to passes above 5,000m.
In progress
IESH — Integrated Environmental Science Hub
Modular, offline-first environmental station and classroom laboratory. The v0.1 prototype — air, soil, gas proxies, sky camera, onboard learning portal — is in field testing.
Planned
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MEMS Seismometer Network Low-cost, GPS-timed seismic stations for dense urban monitoring. Based on MEMS accelerometers with continuous data streaming.
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Portable Inflatable Planetarium Mobile astronomy for schools without dark skies. Inflatable dome with digital projection system. Original Nepali-language astronomical programmes.
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SDR Radio Science Station Software-defined radio station serving multiple science programmes simultaneously: meteor scatter detection, lightning sensing, ionospheric monitoring, and weather satellite reception.
All instrument designs published open-source. Any institution anywhere can build them.
Education & open knowledge
HICS's education programmes bring instruments, data, and scientific practice directly into schools and communities. Not textbook science — students analyse real data from real instruments collecting real signals.
Annual Science Camp
Ten-day residential programme for high school students (Grades 9–11) selected from across Nepal. Priority for students from districts outside Kathmandu.
School Science Residency Programme
Multi-day visits to schools combining planetarium sessions, instrument workshops, data exploration, and teacher training.
Teacher Professional Development
Annual one-week residential intensive. Teachers leave with a working instrument they built, curriculum modules ready to teach, and membership in an ongoing professional community.
Youth Research Fellowship
Full-time 12–24 month research positions for Nepali scientists and engineers. Real research. Real stipend. Real publications.
Gender equity is structural, not symbolic: fellowship selection, camp admissions, teacher recruitment, and mentoring structures all explicitly work to reduce barriers for women and girls.
Latest notes
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Muon Detector — Design Notes and Sourcing RealityWhere the cosmic-ray instrument actually stands: design settled on a plastic scintillator + SiPM architecture with two units in coincidence, target cost under NPR 25,000 per detector. Components are the bottleneck, not the design. No flux numbers yet — there is no detector yet.
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IESH v0.1 — Field-Testing the Classroom LaboratoryThe modular prototype adds soil temperature and moisture, CO and air-quality proxies on a proper ADC, a fisheye sky camera, and an onboard learning portal with 25+ activities — all of it working with zero internet. Notes from the bench and the first field runs.
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Crystal Mountain School — Designing the Thermal ArrayWe are embedding a roughly 50-sensor temperature array into the walls and rooms of the new multipurpose hall at Crystal Mountain School while it is being built — the first systematic thermal-performance dataset for a passive solar building at 4,000 m in Nepal. These are the design notes; the data comes after commissioning, not before.
Recent publications
Researcher?
We are looking for collaborators in atmospheric science, earth science, and physics. → Write to us
Student?
Research fellowships for Nepali scientists who want to do science here, not abroad. → Fellowship details
Teacher?
Instruments, data, and programmes for schools across Nepal. → School partnerships
Funder?
We are building something that does not exist anywhere else in this region. → What we're building