48 Indian institutes in partnerships with international universities: UGC chief

New Delhi: Under the government's twinning programme, 48 Indian universities are either engaged in or actively pursuing cooperation with international higher education institutions (HEIs), including four southern universities including the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore.

According to University Grants Commission (UGC) chairperson Professor M. Jagadesh Kumar, other southern universities seeking collaborations under the programme include Pondicherry University, Periyar University, Salem, and Manipal Academy of Higher Education in Karnataka, NIE reported.

According to Kumar, the regulations allowing Indian and foreign higher education institutions to offer twinning and joint degree (where some coursework is completed abroad) and dual degree (where both colleges award degree) programmes have received positive feedback ever since they were released in May of this year."Response to the regulations has been overwhelming.

So far, 48 Indian universities have shared that they have either engaged in academic collaboration with foreign higher education institutions (HEIs) or are in the advanced stage of finalising the collaboration agreements," Kumar said.

On September 12, 2022, the Tata Institute of Social Sciences publicly introduced two brand-new, first-of-their-kind international dual degree programmes as part of the 2022–2023 academic session. According to the UGC chairperson, the list of qualified Indian HEIs includes about 26 central universities.