IIT Mandi and Leibniz Universitat Hannover (LUH), Germany, sign MoU for Academic Collaboration
Mandi: Indian Institute of Technology Mandi and Leibniz Universitat Hannover (LUH), Germany, have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on 6th December 2018. The MoU was signed by Prof. Timothy A. Gonsalves, Director, IIT Mandi, and Prof. Dr. lur. Volker Epping, President, Leibniz Universitat Hannover, in Germany. The MoU is aimed at mutual benefit by conducting joint research activities and exchanging academic materials. It will pave the way for the exchange of students and academic and administrative staff between the two institutions.
Under this MoU, both the institutions will develop joint teaching and research projects in the future. The visiting scientists will be given an appropriate workplace with ancillary equipment. Students will be enrolled according to their academic background and a mutually recognized curriculum shall be developed and the hosting institution will help in their academic, social and cultural integration. The MoU between the two institutions is for five years and can be renewed further.
Speaking about the collaboration, Prof. Timothy A. Gonsalves, Director, IIT Mandi, said, “Since 2011, IIT Mandi has had a strategic partnership with the TU9 in Germany to tap into the German excellence in Engineering and Science. Many of our faculty now have research collaborations with TU9 institutions, including Leibniz Universitat Hannover. This MoU will spur the collaboration with LUH to a higher plane and will enable bilateral exchange visits by many students.”
IIT Mandi has already taken several steps to give impetus to its existing collaborations with various German institutes. Recently, a team of 6 members from IIT Mandi, including Prof. Timothy A. Gonsalves, Dr. Deepak Swami, Dr. Suman Kalyan Pal, Dr. Jaspreet Kaur Randhawa, Dr. Bindu Radhamany and Dr. Bharat Singh Rajpurohit, visited Leibniz Universitat Hannover, Germany, to attend a workshop aimed at taking research collaboration to the next level. A fund of Rs. 1.42 crore is already allocated for the exchange visit of IIT Mandi faculty to any of the TU9 Institutes (an alliance of the leading Universities of Technology in Germany). Instructors of German origin with native German fluency are engaged at IIT Mandi to promote collaborations in teaching and research and make students familiar with the courses in German language at both the basic and advanced levels.
IIT Mandi has developed several teaching and research collaborations with various universities in the European Union (EU) and other parts of the world. Numerous IIT Mandi faculty and students have made use of these collaborations to visit various institutions like TU9 Institutes. Similarly, international students have visited IIT Mandi from these institutes.
List of Universities who are already in collaborations with IIT Mandi:
1. Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP) Trieste, Italy
2. Technical University of Munich (TUM), Germany
3. Blekinge Institute of Technology, Sweden
4. Higher Education Institutions, Finland
5. TU9, Germany
6. Hepia, Switzerland
7. IT University, Copenhagen, Denmark
8. McMaster University, Canada
9. RWTH Aachen University, Germany
10. Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI), USA
IIT Mandi believes in the exchange of knowledge across international boundaries. During the past year, IIT Mandi has hosted many international students from Loughborough University, UK; TU Munich, Germany; TU Darmstadt, Germany; Georg-August University, Germany; and University of Bath, UK. This year, IIT Mandi has also worked with other new IITs to attract graduate students from neighbouring countries like Bangladesh and Nepal. A large number of IIT Mandi faculties have also visited institutions in Europe, North America, Australia, South Asia, and Latin America in 2017-18 for attending conferences and industry & academic collaborations.