Successful overseas recruitment & research collaboration tour by IIT Ropar
New Delhi: The Indian Institute of Technology, Ropar successfully completed its 2nd overseas tour for international recruitment and research collaborations. The team from the institute, headed by Prof. Sarit Kumar Das, Director, IIT Ropar, travelled to Australia and Singapore with an objective of building strong international research collaborations with universities and research institutes; build relationships with the Indian diaspora and aim to bring back some of the best talent overseas as faculty at the institute. The team accompanying Prof. S.K. Das, Director, IIT Ropar included Dr. Harpreet Singh, Associate-Dean (International Affairs), Prof. Manohar Lal Munjal (Senior Senator of IIT Ropar) Prof. Deepak Kashyap, (Head, Civil Engineering), Dr. Rohit Y. Sharma, Coordinator (International University Affairs).
The delegation visited Macquarie University, Sydney; Australian National University, Canberra; Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), Canberra; University of Canberra; Swinburne University, Melbourne; University of New South Wales, Sydney; National University of Singapore and Nangyang Technological University, Singapore. The team discussed the prospects of building a strong research collaboration in areas such as Biomedical Engineering, Affordable healthcare, Telecommunication, Artificial Intelligence, Robotics, Nanoelectronics, Medical Image Processing, Big data and data analytics, Water and Environmental Science, Sports Technologies, Civil Engineering and Material Sciences. During the tour, the delegation also signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the University of New South Wales.
As a part of the tour, the team also conducted offshore faculty recruitments to get overseas faculty & researchers to come and work with the institute. 14 candidates were screened in total during the trip for positions in Computer Science Engineering (CSE), Mechanical Engineering (ME), Electrical Engineering (EE), Biomedical Engineering (BME). 2 candidates were selected for faculty positions in the departments of Computer Science Engineering (CSE) & Electrical Engineering (EE). Out of the remaining candidates, 5 were recommended to the respective departments for evaluation, post which their recruitment will be finalized.
The team also met with the Indian diaspora in Australia & Singapore, where Prof. Das introduced IIT Ropar and presented his vision and mission about IIT Ropar and its possible contribution to the state in solving some of challenging problems of the State. It was decided during the meeting that the membership of Council of Global Associates (CGA) of IIT Ropar to be expanded with members from Australia.
Speaking about the successful trip, Prof. Sarit K Das, Director, IIT Ropar said, “The 3 main objectives of the overseas tour were to forge research collaborations and partnerships with universities and research institutes, attract meritorious faculty and to reach out to the Indian diaspora & IIT alumni abroad. On all these accounts, we had an extremely successful trip. We visited some of the top universities in Australia & Singapore and discussed collaborations with them on some of the key research areas like biomedical engineering, affordable healthcare, robotics and artificial intelligence. The response we got in return was very encouraging and we are happy to have signed an MoU with the University of New South Wales as part of the collaborations.”
“We also got some brilliant candidates for faculty positions and have already recruited 2 faculty members and hope to get some more. We also met with the Indian diaspora in both the countries who promised to serve IIT Ropar in all possible ways and gave many valuable suggestions from them, which we will be implementing soon. The success of the visit will not only help in enhancing the quality of academics at IIT Ropar, but also will make the institution familiar internationally.”, he added.