BHUBANESWAR: City-Based KIIT University has bagged ‘Institution of Eminence’ (IoE) tag from the Ministry of Human Resources Development (MHRD). Founder of KIIT and KISS and Kandhamal MP Achyuta Samanta said KIIT, which is just 22 years old as an institution and 15 years as a university, is the youngest in the country to earn the prestigious recognition. To grant IoE tag to higher educational institutions, the Centre constituted an Empowered Expert Committee (EEC) under the chairmanship of former Chief Election Commissioner N Gopalaswami.
The Letter of Intent regarding IoE was issued to KIIT University last month. Though a number of reputed institutions applied and took part in the process, EEC selected only 10 public and 10 private institutions based on their presentation and recommended their names to University Grants Commission (UGC) which examined the applications and accorded IoE status to only five public and five private educational institutions, including KIIT in Odisha.
Samanta said the recognition will give KIIT University autonomy to collaborate with any global institution or university for student exchange programmes and research works. University officials said currently KIIT has 1,000 regular students from over 50 countries pursuing regular courses. Besides, nearly 1,000 students from abroad pursue different certificate courses in the university every year as part of a c a d e m i c e x c h a n g e programme.
University Registrar Sasmitarani Samanta said to promote multi-disciplinary research in different fields including science, technology and social development, KIIT is setting up a Central Research Centre at an investment of `200 crore. She said the university has 2,500 faculties in 50 disciplines. The multi-disciplinary research centre will help them to carry out research together.
A Translational Research Centre will also be set up on the university premises here to conduct research in the field of social development, she added. KIIT Vice-Chancellor Hrusikesh Mohanty said after getting IoE tag the University will have more responsibility in terms of imparting quality education at par with global educational institutions and universities.