BGBS sees key MoUs signed in education sector

Kolkata: The Bengal Global Business Summit (BGBS) on Wednesday witnessed some major MoUs in the Education sector on Wednesday, with Jadavpur University alone signing three MoUs with three leading foreign universities for collaborative research and education.

"We have signed three MoUs with Edinburgh University, University of Exeter in UK and Eötvös Loránd University of Hungary," said Suranjan Das, vice-chancellor of Jadavpur University, on the sidelines of BGBS. It may be mentioned that JU has been doing joint research projects with Edinburgh University (EU) and the university's School of Oceanography has been working in collaboration with EU.

"We want to take up this tie-up to higher levels with the MoU signing. There will be collaborative research projects, joint seminars and most importantly, exchange of students," Das said.

JU will attach top priority on digital humanities in its tie-up with Exeter University, with emphasis on social science, humanities, literature and basic sciences.

"There will be exchange of scholars, joint seminars and workshops," a senior academic official of JU said.

It may be mentioned that Exeter has a good rapport with the English department of JU and the varsity vice-chancellor Das had been a visiting professor at Exeter.

The MoU with Eötvös Loránd University of Hungary will see collaborations in the engineering and technology sector of the varsity. There will be collaborations in electrical, mechanical and metallurgy.

It may be mentioned that University Grants Commission (UGC), has allowed joint research on supervision in M.Phil and PhD level.

"We have MoUs with a number of universities and a student of JU can go to a foreign university as supervisor and vice-versa. However, the student will be awarded the degree of the university in which he/she is registered," the official said.

Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee announced at the summit that her government is providing 5 acres of land each to both JU and Calcutta University at New Town. Presidency University also signed an MoU with Edinburgh University at the summit for collaboration in higher education and life sciences.