The IUCAA-NCRA Admission Test (INAT) is jointly conducted by two leading institutes of the country in the field of astronomy and astrophysics - Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics (IUCAA) and National Centre for Radio Astrophysics of the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (NCRA - TIFR), Pune. Both the institutes are located in neighbouring campuses of Pune University campus.

NCRA is a premier centre for research in Astronomy and Astrophysics, as well as instrumentation, with an emphasis on Radio Astronomy. NCRA has built and operates the Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope, which is located near Pune, and is the biggest and most powerful radio telescope in the world at low radio frequencies. It has been used internationally and has led to several significant discoveries. NCRA has modern computing facilities and a well-stocked library.

IUCAA, on the other hand offers challenging opportunities to young researchers in theory, observation, and instrumentation in Astronomy and Astrophysics.  Recently, IUCAA has acquired a share in the 10m Southern African Large Telescope (SALT), and operates the IUCAA Girawali Observatory (IGO) with 2m optical telescope.  Both the telescopes are with imaging, spectroscopic and polarimetric capabilities.  IUCAA also has a high performance computational facility, and a good library.

The INAT is conducted for research scholarship (to do Ph.D. in Physics) at either of the above institutes.