IIT-BHU and Australian University make pact, discuss long-term educational goals

The Indian Institute of Technology (Banaras Hindu University), Varanasi, will partner up with Australian National University (ANU) for research.

According to the IIT (BHU) spokesperson, a high-level delegation led by Prof. Jagadish Chennupati, who is currently a professor of physics at the Australian National University (ANU) Research School of Physics and Engineering, visited IIT-BHU. With him was present Prof. Alexander Mikheyev and Jay Poria.

In a meeting chaired by IIT-BHU director Prof. Pramod Kumar Jain, various avenues of collaboration, and student and faculty exchange between IIT(BHU) and ANU were discussed.

The two institutes also discussed the possibility of a joint Ph.D. degree in the long term.

Prof. Jagadish spoke about the 'Chennupati and Vidya Jagadish Endowment Fund', a scheme through which researchers from IIT-BHU can visit and access the research facilities through internships and projects fellowships.

A range of topics like the frontier areas of research in physics, including nanotechnology, photonics, healthcare and sustainable energy were discussed in great detail.

Prof. Alexander Mikheyev talked about the co-evolution of parasites/diseases with their hosts using honeybees as model organisms. He stressed that such an investigation would help predict the severity of any future pandemic and India has a great role to play in this regard as a plethora of genetically diverse honeybee species are found in India as compared to Australia where only a few such species are found.

Prof. Jain said that the long-term relationship and research collaboration between IIT-BHU and ANU can be achieved through this programme. He also added that it would allow students and researchers to study at ANU and pursue collaborative research for up to 12 weeks in the first stage.

Prof. Jain also stressed that this is high time to engage in a bilateral academic relationship between India and Australia. He also showed interest in inviting researchers and students to visit IIT-BHU for their academic activities and research.