The Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kharagpur and the University of Leeds, England, have joined hands for institutional collaboration for promoting education and research. The tie-up between IIT Kharagpur and University of Leeds has been forged with the objective of encouraging interaction between faculty, staff and students of both the educational institutions which will ultimately benefit and enhance the technological, social and cultural relations of both the countries.

Issuing a statement over this collaboration, IIT Kharagpur states, “This collaboration will be made successful through visits and exchange programmes, joint academic and research programmes, joint supervision of doctoral and masters students, on a reciprocal basis”. The statement further added “Both the institutes will consider tuition fee waivers to the visiting students,”.

Professor Samit Chakrabarty, School of Biomedical Sciences will be the coordinator from University of Leeds and from IIT Kharagpur, Professor Nilanjan Das Chakladar, Mechanical Engineering will coordinate.

Apart from the short course, seminars, workshops or conferences, the IIT Kharagpur statement says, “the scope of the agreement includes exploring joint PhD and master’s programmes, possibly in association with other reputed academic, research or industrial organisations.

According to a twitter post issued in behalf of IIT Kharagpur, “IIT Kharagpur and University of Leeds have agreed on institutional collaboration in education and research and enhancing technological, social and cultural relations of both countries/states/regions. The MoU will include exploring joint Ph.D./Masters programmes.”

In the year 1951, IIT Kharagpur was established by the government of India in the year 1951. The institute is one of the top IITs and was ranked 4 as per NIRF 2019. Internationally, IIT Kharagpur was ranked 281 in the QS World University Rankings of 2020, 53 in Asia and 23 among BRICS nations.