British Council announces additional grants for industry-academia partnership under GGP

NEW DELHI: The British Council awarded 12 new and 2 top-up grants for industry-academia partnerships across India and the UK, as part of its Going Global Partnerships (GGP) programme today. The announcement was made at the India-UK Higher Education Conference in Delhi.

The focus of the conference is to promote the internationalisation of higher education and the promotion of transnational education. The delegation focused on India-UK collaborations in the field of science, research, and innovation.

It also aimed to boost higher education partnerships, aligning with the goals outlined in the National Education Policy (NEP 2020) and the UK-India 2030 Roadmap as well as the declarations made at the G20 under the education priority.

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According to an official statement, the GGP has enabled 70 grants of about 2 million pounds delivered to 155 universities among which 100 are in India and 55 are in the UK. The programme has enabled 36 new programmes, with six programmes focusing on climate studies and sustainability.

An increase of over 30 percent in the number of enrolments for UK TNE programmes from 9,050 to over 12,000 since the close of the academic year 2021-22 has been facilitated by GGP as per the official data.

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The British delegation will convene with government officials from both central and state governments in India and engage in discussions with policymakers. It will also hold meetings with senior university leaders representing 19 Indian states. These interactions will take place across the national capital, Ahmedabad, Mumbai, and Chennai. The delegation will also be visiting IIT Delhi and Ashoka University.

The union minister of State for education, government of India, Subhas Sarkar; Alex Ellis, British High Commissioner to India; Steve Smith, International Education Champion, government of UK; Maddalaine Ansell, director education, British Council; Alison Barrett MBE, director India, British Council; and Rittika Chanda Parruck, director Education India, British Council, among others, attended the conference.

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“ British Council coordinated with the Department for Business and Trade (DBT) to bring together representatives from 31 UK higher education institutions, including British Universities International Liaison Association (BUILA), Universities UK International (UUKi), the Department for Education (DfE UK) and Pearson” according to an official statement from the conference.

The council will explore partnership opportunities in transnational education and internationalisation with various Indian universities as well as government bodies, including the University Grants Commission (UGC), Department of Science and Technology (DST), Department of Biotechnology (DBT), National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) and Association of Indian Universities (AIU).