Skip to main content Skip to navigation

Partnership with Warwick Helps Power Growth in India for IIT Kharagpur

Professor Lord Kumar Bhattacharyya (right) and Professor D. Acharya, Director of IIT Kharagpur  (left) sign agreementAn international partnership between IIT Kharagpur and WMG, University of Warwick, is helping drive significant expansion for IIT Kharagpur as it moves to support an Indian Government Initiative to increase the number of IITs by opening a number of new IITs each under the guidance of an existing one.

Under this scheme a new IIT at Bhubaneshwar is to be set up with the support of IIT Kharagpur – which was the first ever of India’s prestigious Indian Institutes of Technology. IIT Kharagpur’s close international partnership with the University of Warwick’s WMG is already providing significant help in helping to set up the new IIT.

Professor M.Chakraborty, the new Director of IIT Bhubaneshwar has been appointed a visiting Professor at WMG and has just spent a month at WMG working with its technology specialists to advise on IIT Bhubaneshwar’s multi million pound plans to set up laboratories such as Materials and Tomography, processes. He has also worked with WMG Director Professor Lord Kumar Bhattacharyya and other WMG staff to draw on WMG’s successful record procedures of engaging with local industry, and he has been able to draw support and advice from WMG staff on the development of some new educational modules.    

A dozen WMG research staff and industrialists will now visit IIT Kharagpur in November to continue to build the overall partnership with Kharagpur and to work in particular to examine any opportunities for the partnership to assist further with the creation of IIT Bhubaneshwar.

The University of Warwick’s Vice-Chancellor Professor Nigel Thrift said:

“The partnership between  IIT Kharagpur and WMG is very close and builds on the University of Warwick’s international strategy of having very strong links with a select group of international partners in higher education and research. I am also delighted to see that Professor D. Acharya, Director of IIT Kharagpur has himself been appointed as an Honorary Professor at WMG, and that Professor M.Chakraborty, the new Director of IIT Bhubaneshwar has been appointed a visiting Professor at WMG.”

WMG Director Professor Lord Kumar Bhattacharyya said:

“This is powerful international collaboration. Both our institutions have strong research links with Indian companies including Bharat Forge, Tata (Steel and Motors), TAFE and TVS. We also both work closely with the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII)”

 “IIT Kharagpur saw a benefit in the multi-disciplinary and total cycle approach to research as practiced at WMG. If the cycle is viewed as extending from raw materials, through design, leading to manufacturing, IIT, Kharagpur has strengths in the first part of the cycle and WMG is strong in the latter half of the cycle. So there is scope for much synergism between the two institutions covering the whole cycle effectively.”

Professor D. Acharya Director of IIT Kharagpur said:

“IIT Kharagpur and WMG, University of Warwick, had an interest in creating a long-term institutional partnership in education and research to promote contact and collaboration between faculty, staff, and students and carry out joint research programmes. This partnership has come at an ideal time in that it will surely assist us in quickly establishing international quality education and research programmes in design and manufacturing at both institutions.”

The partnership also includes an Engineering Doctorate programme for candidates sponsored by industries at IIT Kharagpur, joint supervision for MTech and PhD project research and thesis, staff exchanges for the purpose of sharing subject matter expertise and several mutually beneficial internship opportunities for undergraduate

Some of the key research areas that the partnership focuses on are Medical technology and healthcare, E-security: and Low-carbon vehicles.

Notes for Editors 

IIT Kharagpur was founded by Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru, Prime Minister of India, in 1951. It was the first institute of higher education and research in engineering and science established by the Government of India. It established itself very quickly as a centre of excellence with India’s highest university research income and is ranked 1st in India.

WMG, University of Warwick, was founded by Professor Lord Bhattacharyya in 1980. The University of Warwick, founded in 1965, was ranked 3rd in the UK in the Guardian Guide of June 2010.

For further information please contact: 

Peter Dunn, Head of Communications
Communications Office, University House,
University of Warwick, Coventry, CV4 8UW, United Kingdom   
email: p.j.dunn@warwick.ac.uk 
Tel: +44 (0)24 76 523708  Mobile/Cell:  +44 (0)7767 655860

PR65 14th July 2010