Penn State University may tie up with IIT, NMIMS

The Pennsylvania State University, for the first time, is looking at establishing partnerships with institutes in India. In Mumbai, the Penn State, as the university is popularly known, is exploring ties with the Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies (NMIMS) and the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT).

“Currently, the partnerships are ad-hoc and at an individual faculty level. Our faculty is engaged with faculty across India on specific projects. But, we now want to create long-term, institutional-level collaborations,” said Michael Adewumi, vice-provost for global programmes, Pennsylvania State University.

“Three years back, we made a strategic decision to become a global university and to achieve that we need to have external, global reach. We want to establish tie-ups with institutes in India, China, mid-east, south-east Asia, Latin America and Africa,” added Adewumi.

A team from Penn State is visiting Mumbai, Delhi, Hyderabad and Bangalore to explore all possibilities. “There’s a lot of focus on education in India’s 11th plan. So, it’s a good time for artnerships here and Mumbai has a lot of potential. We have had talks with NMIMS and they have shown a lot of interest. IIT Bombay is another institute where we want to explore collaborations,” said Nirmal Pal, regional director for India, Smeal College of Business, Penn State.

In Bangalore, discussions have taken place with the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) and the International Institute of Information Technology (IIIT) among others. However, the university is not looking at establishing any campus in India.

“We’re over 150 years old and it took us some time to achieve the status that we have today. It would take years to bring a branch campus to the same level and it is not part of our strategic vision. We are only looking at leveraging resources by partnering with institutes,” said Adewumi.

Collaborations in research are a major focus area of the university. “We are a research university and our annual research expenditure is $800 million. So, joint research programmes with Indian institutes will be of primary target,” added Adewumi.