City institutes pursue academic tie-ups with UK varsities

Updated on: Sunday, August 08, 2010

Even as UK prime minister David Cameron announced the launch of a new phase of UK-India education and research initiatives on his recent visit, many leading institutes in the city have already established bilateral tie-ups on the academic front with premier universities of Britain over the past one year.

The recent collaboration between the Glasgow Caledonian University and the Fergusson College, where a letter of intent was signed, will see key academic partnership in the field of life science. The agreement will focus on developing a range of postgraduate and top-up programmes in biology and biomedical sciences to be delivered in India by academic staff from both institutions.

Among other institutions coming together with UK universities for research, exchange programmes and strategic tie-ups, are the Indian Institute of Science, Education and Research (IISER), Automotive Research Association of India (ARAI) and the Defence Institute of Advanced Technology (DIAT).

The DIAT is working on tie-ups in strategic areas of studies with leading military and science institutes in UK. It has already established talks with the Royal Military College of Science, Cranfield, for exchange programmes. DIAT director L M Patnaik said, "We decided on this particular college due to similarities in the courses offered. We are planning a faculty exchange programme initially, and will move on to students exchange programme."

Meanwhile, the IISER has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Southeast-India Partnership Network, a consortium of British varsities led by the University of Surrey. The MoU primarily focuses on exchange programmes during summer and autumn months. IISER registrar V S Rao said, "The tie-up will encourage teaching collaboration between UK varsities and the IISER. It aims at building an under-graduate curriculum with the help of the University of Glasgow for teaching science and exchange programme for students. In the next academic year, a few of our students will visit the University of Glagow."

Besides, the ARAI has also signed a MoU with Loughborough University, Leicestershire, for research, postgraduate and doctoral programmes in automotive engineering. K C Vora, head of ARAI academy, said, "We are planning some MTech courses in automotive engineering. In fact, we did some joint courses with the Loughborough University in power train engineering last year and look to repeating it this year."

City institutes pursue academic tie-ups with UK varsities

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