Academic tour by IIT Ropar faculty
THE DELEGATION AIMED AT FOSTERING ACADEMIC AND RESEARCH LINKAGES ACROSS UNIVERSITIES
NEW DELHI: An academic tour by faculty members at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Ropar concluded recently.
The delegation led by the institute director Sarit K Das and included M. L. Munjal, senior senator, IIT Ropar, professor and INSA senior scientist, department of mechanical engineering, Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru; Raj P. Chhabra, professor, department of chemical engineering, IIT Kanpur; Harpreet Singh, professor, mechanical engineering department and dean, external relations and Rohit Y Sharma, associate professor, electrical engineering department and associate-dean, International Relations, IIT Ropar visited Canada, Germany and the United States.
The delegation aimed at fostering academic and research linkages with world’s leading universities in these countries.
In Canada, the delegation visited Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, where a memorandum of understanding (MoU) was signed between the two institutions.
The delegation also visited SUNY Polytechnic and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) respectively.
An MoU was inked with the SUNY Polytechnic while IIT Ropar’s collaborated with JWAFS (Jameel World Water and Food Security) centre at Massachusetts Institute of Technology will primarily focus on research related to water and food.
In the last leg of the visit, delegation visited Technische Universität , Darmstadt, Germany where an MoU was inked.
The objective of these agreements was to encourage research collaborations in several thematic areas and to facilitate faculty and student exchange, joint knowledge creation through workshops and seminars and other academic initiatives.
Another key objective of the delegation visit was to undertake faculty hiring in various departments of IIT Ropar.
For this, three offshore interviews were conducted in Chicago, Boston and Darmstadt, while faculty walk-in interviews were conducted in Chicago and Boston in the US as well as Darmstadt in Germany.
In its last leg, the delegation also actively interacted with the Punjabi diaspora that are residing in these countries.
To the end, NRI meets were held in Vancouver and Chicago. The objective of the meetings was involving NRIs in the development of IIT Ropar and to seek grants and endowments for joint research initiatives with NRIs that have societal benefits.
Speaking about the tour, Prof. Sarit K Das, Director, IIT Ropar, in a statement said, “The primary objective of the delegation was to collaborate with leading universities and foster academic and research collaborations. The collaborations comprised of joint research programmes, seminars, student and faculty exchange programmes, which will enable cross learning between researchers from both sides.”
The delegation also aimed at reversing brain drain by conducting interviews with promising and established researchers for faculty positions at the institute.