The University of Kerala was founded as the University of Travancore in the erstwhile princely state of Travancore in 1937.The University has also a number of study centres in specialised areas such as Nano-technology, Kerala Studies, Bioinformatics, Womens Studies, Learning Difficulties, Sree Narayana Studies, Gandhian Studies etc. Some of these centres have taught programmes (Certificate/Diploma/Masters/Mphil) and many offer PhD programmes.