Universities from China, France, Israel, UK and Canada came together for joint-PhD degree programmes with IIT-Madras recently. The negotiations for the programme have been going on between the different universities for about a year.
The five universities are Université de Technologie de Troyes, UTT of France, Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, National Tsing Hua University (NTHU) in China, University of Waterloo in Canada and University of Liverpool in United Kingdom.
The joint PhD research is aimed at developing research of global flavour in multiple disciplines with doctoral as ‘intellectual go-betweens’ between countries. “In order for research communities to work on world-class problems to mitigate world-class challenges we need to create a landscape in which intellectual synergies with world-class universities at all corners of the globe can be proactively fermented. With this as our underpinning, I cannot think of anything that can be better than to establish joint and sustainable PhD programmes with the best of the best globally,” said Lih J Chen, president of NTHU.
Professor Nagarajan, dean of International and Alumni Relations, IIT-Madras, said that the institution is highly selective about the universities with whom it enters into such joint-degree programmes at the doctorate level. At present, IIT-M has such joint-doctorate programmes with NUS, Singapore, University of Passau, Germany, and Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne, Australia. “Others are in the offing. We are very committed to a two-way engagement, where an equal number of students from both institutions participate in such programmes. A lop-sided arrangement is of little benefit to either party,” he said.
