Imperial keen to set 'foot' in India

Updated on: Monday, September 07, 2009

Established in 1907, Imperial College London is known for its research excellence. The Times Higher Education-QS World University Rankings 2008

ranked it third in Europe and sixth in the world. Imperial attributes its success to its international demography. “Our criteria for selecting staff and students is excellence; irrespective of culture, country or religion. Around 40% of the staff and 45% of the student population is from overseas,” says Roy Anderson, rector, Imperial College London.

However, he feels that with more students wanting an international education it is not enough for world-class institutes to attract students only to one campus. Imperial College London, too, he says, is devising a new international policy, under which the college wants to set its “footprints” in four regions — India, Singapore, China and the Gulf region.

Anderson was in India to explore the possibility of establishing a tie-up. Imperial College’s relation with India is, however, not new. “Indian students have been part of Imperial College since the beginning. Over the years, we have had distinguished Indian students including Rajiv Gandhi, former Prime Minister of India,” he says. Currently the college has 250 Indian students in various disciplines such as engineering, medicine and business studies. Apart from this, the college’s association with India has been in terms of research. It helped set up IIT-Delhi in the ‘60s. The Grantham Institute for Climate Change has partnered with the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore. “We have also signed an agreement with Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) for joint collaborative research in the field of civil nuclear energy and power,” he informs.

But now, the college wants to explore new tie-ups. “Many less-distinguished international colleges have been setting their campuses in different countries. World-class institutes have been slow in that aspect. They feel that it will dilute the quality. However, I do not see why world-class institutes such as us cannot have an international presence. They can do it either by joint degree programmes or by having physical footprints in other countries like an MNC,” he adds.

“At the moment it would not be possible to establish joint degree programmes with Indian universities because they lack a research environment,” he says. According to him, Indian universities are known for their world-class teaching but they are not research-intensive. And it is on research that the Indian government has to invest. He says, “India has world-class research facilities either within industry or government institutes. But, it is important to note that over 90% of the world’s basic discoveries come from universities.”

Anderson, who is also a professor of infectious disease epidemiology, delivered a lecture on ‘Focus of global research institutes with emphasis on H1N1’ as part of the Chevening lecture series. Indian institutes, he says, have great opportunities to do research on health and medicine.

Timesofindia

Imperial keen to set 'foot' in India

More Education news