IIT Kharagpur, University of Manchester launch India-UK dual doctoral program

NEW DELHI: The Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur and the University of Manchester on Wednesday launched an India-UK dual doctoral programme.

According to officials, students will be jointly recruited and spend time in both Manchester and Kharagpur, benefiting from the expertise, facilities and infrastructure of the two institutions. The programme, beginning this July, will be open to the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) and Indian Institute of Science (IISc) graduates from India, during its initial phase.

“Successful candidates will be required to enrol at both institutions, spending the first year at IIT Kharagpur with the remaining time on the programme split between the two institutes, as determined by the supervisors and the Joint Programme Board,” a senior official said. “Both institutions will be responsible for making their own award, but the two components would form a single research experience managed cooperatively by both the institutes.

The successful doctoral candidates will receive parchments from both the institutions--each prominently mentioning the joint nature of the work and the partner institute’s name,” the official added. While IIT Kharagpur has already established similar programmes with universities in Australia, New Zealand and Canada, this is the first time such a joint programme has been set up with a British university.

Baidurya Bhattacharya, former dean, International Relations at IIT Kharagpur who was instrumental in setting up this programme remarked, “This dual award PhD is a unique partnership made possible by the trust and respect we have developed over the years for each other's research quality and academic standards”. “Starting from defining the doctoral project, selection and admission of the student to supervision, thesis work and evaluation, and finally award of the degree, everything is jointly administered. I believe this programme will provide the template for equal partnership between IITs and top British universities in the future,” he said.

As a core component of its international strategy, The University of Manchester is entering into a small number of dual award PhD programmes with prestigious partner institutions around the world. Professor Stephen Flint, Associate Vice-President International, The University of Manchester said, “The dual PhD with IIT Kharagpur is testament to the University’s strategic ambitions to build world-class research links with India and to encourage more student mobility between the two regions.”

Faculty members from the two institutions will jointly define projects which are approved by a Joint Programme Board. Under this programme, full and partial funding will be available on a competitive basis for four years for a select number of suitably qualified and progressing students.