Tag: PhD scholars

IIT Kharagpur and University Alberta launches Joint Doctoral Program

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IIT Kharagpur in collaboration with University of Alberta, Canada has launched a Joint Doctoral Degree Program (JDP) to create academic exchange between faculty and students.

The program gives the opportunity to undertake research at the partner institution for a period of six months to a year and provides them with international experience and special certification upon graduation. The partnership would include identification of research projects for students to pursue during their doctoral studies, joint supervision, fellowships with financial support in the form of a monthly stipend to cover the cost of accommodation and meals for students during the duration of their visit. The participating students will receive recognition of completing the program jointly with the partner institution through formal notation on their transcripts and parchments.

“In the post COVID-19 world, we have to reach out globally and engage actively in a more strategic manner. Further in order to generate intellectual resources in a wide array of domains there is a need to learn from each other’s expertise through such joint programs. It would definitely be advantageous for people from diverse geographies, environment, lifestyle and challenges making our research focus more oriented towards global dynamics,” said Director IIT Kharagpur, Prof. Virendra Kumar Tewari.

While IIT Kharagpur already has similar joint doctoral programs with several Australian universities, this is the first of its kind with a Canadian university. UAlberta is the only Canadian university to have established such programs at this time. It has a rich history of academic collaboration with India, holding various partnership agreements to support academic mobility and joint research in place with IIT Kharagpur since 2013. Apart from IIT Kharagpur UAlberta has engaged in similar collaborations with IIT Bombay and IIT Roorkee.

“These programs create new opportunities to equip doctoral students with perspectives and skills that will benefit a global society. When we connect with leading international institutions such as the IITs, we’re fueling new capacity for teaching, learning, and research,” said President Prof. David Turpin.

The collaboration has been mobilized by two IIT Kharagpur alumni, Prof. Anandaroop Bhattacharya at the Dept. of Mechanical Engineering at IIT Kharagpur and Prof. Amit Kumar at the  Department of Mechanical Engineering, UAlberta.

Prof. Anandaroop Bhattacharya, Associate Dean, International Relations, remarked, “IIT Kharagpur is delighted to enter into the Joint Doctoral Program with University of Alberta. The partnership between the two institutions has a very strong foundation  through student research internships, research collaborations and joint supervision of students. The joint Ph.D. program will make the partnership even stronger.”

Dr. Amit Kumar, who is the Interim President of Engage India: Association of Professors has been working closely together with University of Alberta International to help establish the JDP.

“Engage India was launched in April 2019 with the aim of promoting academic exchange and relations between U of A and India,” shares Kumar. “Our membership has expressed considerable interest in collaborating on joint research with Indian partners as well as recruiting high quality graduate students from India. The Joint Doctoral Degree Programs with the IITs will help us accomplish both of these goals,” he added.

Contacts: 

Project Information: Prof. Anandaroop Bhattacharya, adeanir@adm.iitkgp.ac.in

Institute Related: Prof. B N Singh, registrar@hijli.iitkgp.ac.in; 

Media Outreach: Shreyoshi Ghosh, shreyoshi@adm.iitkgp.ac.in

More News:: https://kgpchronicle.iitkgp.ac.in/; 

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To get the ball rolling

Swarajya Magazine       Indian Express

SPARC website launched by IIT Kharagpur, which is the national coordinator for MHRD’s new initiative in higher education

The launch of the website of the Scheme for Promotion of Academic and Research Collaboration or SPARC on September 28, 2018 marks the formal beginning of the latest higher education initiative of the Ministry of Human Resource Development. IIT Kharagpur is the National Coordinating Institute of SPARC, a programme that seeks to improve the research ecosystem of India’s higher educational institutions by promoting academic and research collaboration between Indian institutions and best-in-class faculty and renowned research groups in foreign institutions. As many as 28 foreign countries are being targeted in the first phase of the scheme. The partner foreign institutes will be those that hold top QS World University Rankings.

The scheme proposes to support components considered critical to the production of impact-making research. It will fund visits and long-term stay of top international faculty or researchers in Indian institutions to pursue teaching and research. Not merely that, it will also fund visits of Indian students for training and experimentation in premier laboratories worldwide.

The scheme builds on the overwhelming success of the Global Initiative of Academic Networks or GIAN, also coordinated nationally by IIT Kharagpur. However, while GIAN promotes short courses and short-term stays of foreign faculty, SPARC intends to realise the maximum benefits of the research collaboration by exposing students to world class research facilities and equipment while supporting long-duration courses by visiting foreign faculty and also senior foreign students. The foreign faculty members can visit Indian partner institutions twice in two years for a period of 15 days to 4 months and teach 12-36 hours on a course topic.

Prof. Partha Pratim Chakrabarti, Director of IIT Kharagpur, said, “SPARC funding will be primarily used for fundamental research areas, emerging areas of interest, convergence areas, action-oriented research, innovation-driven research. Areas of collaboration will include Science and Technology, Humanities, Social Sciences and so on.” Apart from providing international expertise to solve major national problems, SPARC is expected to lead to the production of jointly authored publications, research monographs, patents, demonstrable technologies and products, several workshops and two national conferences each year.

Proposals for a two year interaction can be submitted by all Indian institutes ranked in the overall top-100 or category-wise top-100 in the India Rankings (NIRF). The proposal should involve at least two international faculty, two Indian faculty and two PhD/Postdoctoral researchers.

The proposal portal of SPARC ( www.sparc.iitkgp.ac.in )will open on October 4 and remain open till November 15. Each Indian Institution can submit proposals with any of the 28 foreign countries. Evaluation will be done first by a sectional committee and the final evaluation will be done by an Apex Committee. Prof. Adrijit Goswami, joint coordinator of SPARC for IIT Kharagpur said, “We are expecting to approve around 600 proposals.”

As the national coordinator, IIT Kharagpur will be routing SPARC funds, manage the online portal, coordinate with the other nodal institutes of India, organize two annual SPARC conferences, liaise with MHRD and manage the intellectual output of SPARC.