| |9 September 2020HIGHERReviewstudents in a manner that they are prepared to take up the challenges in their field of employment is an en-hanced academic-industry interface. Without a collaborative partnership between industry and academia, In-dian universities will be functioning in an isolated mode without aligning their curriculum and delivery as per industry requirements and will keep churning out low skill graduates add-ing to the burgeoning educated un-employed labor force of India. Research excellence is the most important aspect which differentiates the top 10 universities at the global level from others. Research output by faculty determines the innovative-ness, creativity, analytical effective-ness and impact of a higher education institute or university in a subject area. India has the best of minds and a young generation of academicians ready to explore newer horizons in all subject areas. What is required is the support for research initiatives from not only Government but also industry. Just like venture capital funds provide funding for business ideas, Indian industry in partnership with Government research grant or-ganizations can form research grant funds which provide the financial support to researchers in Indian uni-versities. The returns will be in the form of higher world rankings for our universities and the revenue which will be gained from international stu-dents coming to India for education par excellence. Efforts are also need-ed on the part of faculty from various state and private universities to col-laborate with each other and with in-ternational organizations for research in pertinent aspects having an impact on the development of their subject areas. Rankings are not important per se, they are significant as they are an indicator of performance, which as a moral and ethical responsibili-ty any and every university must be conscious of. India is capable of de-veloping world class universities and institutes and the focus on relevant and genuine research will help Indian universities gain that ground where research insights from Indian univer-sities are cited by researchers all over the world.The recent plan of the Govern-ment for establishing the Institutes of Eminence is a welcome move under which 20 institutes ­ 10 public and 10 private institutes will be identified for developing them into world class education centres which can reach in the Top-100 world university rank-ings eventually. These institutes are expected to raise bars for them-selves as well as other institutes and universities in the country as they will be free from major regulations and will be allowed to pursue their own plans for achieving the goal of world class education. What remains to be addressed is the reach of such schemes which is generally limited to a few selected institutes. The scope of selection of institutes needs to be expanded and more institutes from the ones performing well under all financial and regulatory constraints may be considered on a compara-tive basis for a phase wise initiation of such schemes to a larger number of institutes. In terms of internationalization of education, higher education insti-tutes in India need to focus upon fac-ulty and student exchange programs which are meaningful in terms of the cross cultural exchanges and knowl-edge sharing. For this specific pro-grams are required which are much more than educational excursions in the sense of structure, content, de-livery and duration. Efforts should be made to attract international faculty as well as students in order to develop a multicultural environment for ex-changing ideas, sharing values, devel-oping a global outlook and promote Indian universities as global brands. India has the best of minds and a young generation of academicians ready to explore newer horizons in all subject areas
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