Collaborations between PU and France discussed

Chandigarh, December 11, 2018: Ms Emilia CARTIER, Attaché for Scientific and University Cooperation, Embassy of France and Dr.Anisha Gokarna, faculty of University of Technology of Troyes (UTT), Troyes, France visited Panjab University, here today, with regard to collaborations between PU and France.

The meeting was chaired by Prof. Shankarji Jha , Dean University Instruction (DUI) and officiating Vice Chancellor , PU. He stated that Indians are peace loving people because of Gandhian ideas. Its of utmost important to learn to be a human being. He desired for partnership with France in the field of education.

Ms.Emilia CARTIER talked about the need to develop and look for broadening perspectives and revive the already existing collaborations. She talked about the events like Choose France which will be held in the month of February.

Dr. Anisha Gokarna, Research Associate in University of Technology of Troyes (UTT) France, involved in developing International collaborations between UTT and Indian Universities for student exchange programs (Masters Courses, Engineering Courses) as well as research collaborations, visited Panjab University and made a presentation about the different courses being run in UTT. She told that UTT is a Public Institute which is ranked No. 5 in France.

She added that the Students get admission through European Credit Transfer System and appropriateness of courses. They have five years engineering programme where they study in collaborating university also and get dual degree from the host university and the collaborating university. They have 30-40% international students who are coming to do Engineering Courses.

She further informed that the Govt of France desires 10,000 thousand Indian students to come to France in the coming 3 years for study, research and student exchange programmes . Government of France is open to internships or double degree programme. She explained that with the University where MOU’s are signed, the fee is not charged by their university.

Prof. Nandita Singh, Dean International Students, said that education is one of the means to strengthen cultural and social ties between the two nations.

Prof. S.K.Tomar from Department of Mathematics said that PU is a prestigious institute of nation and there are ample opportunities for collaborations in the field of education.

Prof. O.P. Katare, University Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences (UIPS) gave a detailed overview of Panjab University explaining the potential areas where collaborations can be thought of.

Prof. Sanjeev Puri, Director, CIIPP shared the broad mandate of Industry Institute Partnership of PU where he talked about the active and vibrant faculty who is actively engaged in national international patent filing along with number of technologies being transferred to industry for commercial use. He suggested to look into the collaborations wherein the mutual collaboration both for the academia and industry could be facilitated between faculty of PU and French UTT and also for the Student Exchange Programme for garnering the Industry Academia Research for the oral benefit of the society.

Prof. Sunil Kumar Arora from Centre for Nanoscience & Nanotechnology shared the possibility of collaborative research in the area of NSNT. The exchange of students to French Universities was discussed. UTT and PU to explore the possibility of writing joint research programmes in various emerging technology areas.

Prof. Archana Singh, School of Communication Studies desired that the department would be interested in participating in the MoU for student and faculty exchange programme as the studies in mass communication are very closely related to technology because of recent trends in digitisation.

Prof. Cecilia Antony, The Department of French and Francophone Studies said that they would like to set up a chair in the name of Romain Rolland, a French Nobel Prize Winner in literature who wrote books in Swami Vivekananda and was a close friend of Gandhi and Tagore.

Prof. Deepti Gupta, Dean, Alumni Relations, Prof. Rohit Sharma, Chairperson, Department of Microbial Biotechnology and Chief Coordinator and Project Leader, Cluster Innovation Centre in Biotechnology and BioNEST, Prof. Amrit Pal Toor from Dr. S. S. Bhatnagar University Institute of Chemical Engineering & Technology and other senior faculty members were present on the occasion.