Australian profs to co-guide IIT-M students

Starting next year, post-graduate students and research scholars at IIT- Madras can be co-guided in their projects by academic experts in Australia, along with their professors at their institute. As part of a collaborative programme launched by IIT- Madras with the University of Melbourne recently, students from the institute will also get to spend about a year in Australia for their research.

Dean of International and Alumni Relations at IIT-Madras, Prof. R. Nagarajan said the multi-million-dollar scholarship programme — Melbourne-India Postgraduate Program — will link the University of Melbourne with IIT- Madras, IIT-Kanpur and the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore (IISc). This will help researchers in these institutes carry out research jointly and also facilitate collaborative supervision of Ph. D work, he added. 

“University of Melbourne has a very strong research culture. And, spending some time doing work there will only make our students and faculty members better researchers,” Prof. Nagarajan said. The programme will be open to all post-graduate students and research scholars from all streams. The AUD 3 million-programme will provide scholarships and associated support for research exchanges to collaborating students over the next three years, Prof. Nagarajan said. 

IIT- M, over the last few years has collaborated with universities in Singapore, Taiwan, Germany and Australia to offer joint-PhD programmes wherein the degree is awarded by the two collaborating universities. “It is a four-stage process, starting with faculty interactions, leading to research scholar exchanges and joint supervision of PhDs. Hopefully, the collaboration with University of Melbourne would also culminate in joint-PhDs for  students,” he added.