Background

IIT Delhi is one of the 23 IITs created to be Centres of Excellence for training, research and development in science, engineering, and technology in India. Early IITs were established with support from friendly nations – the first (IIT Bombay) with help from the USSR, followed by Madras (West Germany), Kanpur (the USA), and Delhi (the UK).

A trust called the Delhi Engineering College Trust was established with the help of the UK Government and the Federation of British Industries in London. H.R.H. Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, during his visit to India, laid the foundation stone of the College at Hauz Khas on January 28,1959.In 2018 IIT Delhi was given the status of Institution of Eminence (IoE) by the Government of India, granting more autonomy. IoEs are given freedom to admit foreign students up to 30% of their total student population and recruit foreign faculty up to 25% of the faculty strength. They can also access enhanced research funding.

IIT Delhi was ranked 185 in the latest QS World University Rankings, and 43 in Asia. The THE rankings put it between 400 and 500 worldwide. It regularly ranks in the top two places in Indian rankings of engineering colleges.

IIT Delhi continues to have strong relationships with the UK – both through its foundation, and through participation in and collaboration on projects with the British Council, UKRI and the SIN network. It is a regular venue for incoming UK delegations, most recently the UK Vice Chancellors delegation in September 2019. It has been mooted as a venue for VIP and VVIP visits.

Call for UK HEIs to submit their interest to collaborate with IIT Delhi for Joint PhD Programme

IIT Delhi seeks expression of interest from UK HEIs to collaborate for Joint Doctoral Program to support scholars across diverse discipline areas to deliver global impact. The program will be jointly run by IIT Delhi and selected UK HEI. The major advantage of Joint Doctoral Programme is that a student at the end of completion of program shall be awarded a degree jointly by both institutions. The program aims to have significant interaction with various industry partners also during the stay of student at both the campuses. Further programme aim to train a large number of students under the joint PhD programme, supervised by professors at both institutions.

The objective of the joint doctoral programme is to attract the best global talent, including high performing students, academics, researchers and scientists to work on goal - directed, cross - disciplinary grand challenges that are of significance to UK & India and the global community.

The collaboration will also enable the establishment of a mobility or fellowship scheme to enable academics and postdoctoral fellows to spend time at each institute, expanding and deepening research collaborations and offering career development opportunities for early career researchers.

Benefits to both institutions includes:

• Enhanced research links, enriching the research endeavour of both institutions and enabling interdisciplinary research that tackles global issues at grander scale;
• Opportunities to access international research and industry funding;
• Increase industry engagement to support international internships and placements for students at both institutions;
• Increase the number of PhD graduates and contribution to national research outputs;
• Increase enrolments from the best and brightest students through attractive program offerings and expanded mobility opportunities;
• Provide opportunities for both institutions to attract elite students from both countries
• Heightened profile for both institutions nationally as well as globally
• Joint PhD program will enable students to enrol in a joint PhD with supervision from both institutions. Upon successful completion of the program, students will be jointly awarded a PhD degree from both institutions

Student value proposition:

• Gain a global joint qualification from two institutions;
• Receive a generous scholarship, including a living stipend and tuition fee scholarship and a travel grant;
• Benefit from global expertise via dual supervision as well as possible industry input;
• Have the opportunity to spend some of PhD at both institutions (IIT Delhi and UK HEI); and
• On completion, have access to broad industry networks.

Financials:

• Both parties to make financial contributions to support the joint PhD Programme

Discussions and coordination will be led by Naveen Garg, Dean, International Programmes and his profile below

Naveen Garg is the Janaki and K. A. Iyer Chair Professor of Computer Science at IIT Delhi. He did his B.Tech. and Ph.D. in Computer Science from IIT Delhi, was a postdoctoral researcher at the Max-Planck-Institut fur Informatik, Germany and since 1998 he has been a faculty member at IIT Delhi.

Naveen’s contributions are primarily in the design and analysis of approximation algorithms for NP-hard combinatorial optimization problems arising in network design, scheduling, routing, facility location etc. He is a Fellow of Indian Academy of Science, Bangalore and was awarded the SS Bhatnagar award for Mathematical Sciences in 2016.