In a major push to scale up collaborations between Indian and foreign institutions in higher education, the University Grants Commission (UGC) has reached out to nearly 500 foreign universities, located across the US, UK, Europe and East Asia.

The commission now plans to hold a meeting with the heads of foreign missions in India to discuss the possibilities of tie-ups in step with the recently notified regulations on twinning programmes, joint degree and dual degree programmes that will be applicable from the academic year 2022-23.

The University Grants Commission (Academic Collaboration between Indian and Foreign Higher Education Institutions to offer Joint Degree, Dual Degree, and Twinning Programmes) Regulations, 2022 were notified in April.

“We have also sent them (foreign institutions) a list of eligible Indian universities with whom MoUs can be signed. We have not written to any universities in China although some of their universities fulfill the eligibility criteria,” UGC chairperson M Jagadesh Kumar told The Indian Express on Sunday.

Under the regulations, foreign institutes willing to collaborate must rank in the top 1000 in either the Times Higher Education or QS rankings. The Indian universities meeting the same standard or placed among the top 100 in the National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF), or having a minimum score of 3.01 from the National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) are eligible.

Academic collaborations between Indian and foreign institutions in the higher education sector is among the key recommendations of the National Education Policy, 2020.

Work is also underway to pave the way for reputed Indian institutes such as IIT Delhi to set up campuses abroad. A committee under IIT council chairman Dr K Radhakrishnan formed last December recently submitted its recommendations for opening offshore campuses of Indian higher educational institutions.

Deliberations of another expert panel to get prestigious foreign universities to set up campuses in India have also reached the “final stage”, Prof Kumar said. “It will also reduce a part of the outflow of foreign exchange which stands at about $US 25 billion currently.”