NIT Rourkela is one of the premier national level institutions for technical education in the country and is funded by the Government of India. Government of India has elevated the Regional Engineering College, Rourkela to a deemed university under the name of National Institute of Technology, Rourkela.

The main objective of the Institute is to produce quality Engineers and Scientists in Graduate and Post-Graduate levels in various branches of Engineering and Science. The Institute is managed by the Board of Governors of National Institute of Technology (Rourkela) Society and vested with significant degree of administrative and financial autonomy. Government of India have recognized the Institute as a premier institution of repute and have developed it as a center of excellence under plan funding. The Institute has been modernized by two foreign collaborative funding agencies i.e. the Material theme in the Materials and Metallurgical Engineering department under Indo-U.K. REC project and the Computer Science and Electronics streams under World Bank cum Swiss Development Corporation IMPACT project.

The campus of the Institute consisting of the Institute buildings, halls of residence and staff colony is situated at the eastern end of Rourkela steel city, beyond Sector-1 over an area of 262 hectares of land provided by the Government of Orissa. It is a residential campus offering accommodation to faculty, staff and students. The campus has all the amenities for developing personal, social and academic skills of the student community.

The city of Rourkela came into prominence in the year 1954-55, with the decision of the Government of India to set up the first Public Sector Steel Plant in this locality in collaboration with the then West Germany. The city is a huge metropolis connected with all parts of the country by railway and road. The population of the city is about 6 lakhs.