Indian Education Gets A SPARC: Odisha Shines, While 254 Institutes Will Partner With Top Global Colleges For Research 

Scheme for Promotion of Academic and Research Collaboration (SPARC) is the Centre's new initiative to receive international exposure by collaborating with the best institutions in the world. 254 Indian institutes, out of which six are from Orissa and 478 global institutes have been selected for this programme.

The institutes that were listed on the SPARC portal were, IIT Bhubaneswar, NIT Rourkela, KIIT, Siksha O Anusandhan (SOA), Xavier University and CV Raman College of Engineering. This portal was launched by human resources and development (HRD) minister, Prakash Javadekar.

It will hold joint development of niche courses, world-class books and monographs, translatable patents, demonstrable technologies or action-oriented research outcomes and products and organising high-profile annual international conferences in India, said the MHRD statement. Besides this, this programme will try to improve the international ranking of Indian institutes.

The Centre has sanctioned a total of Rs 418 crore for implementation of the programme up to 31 March 2020. IIT-Kharagpur is the national coordinating institute to implement this. IIT-Bhubaneswar is helping IIT-Kharagpur co-coordinate all submissions meant for collaborating with Switzerland universities, said IIT Bhubaneswar director R V Rajakumar, reports Times Of India.

Sasmita Samanta, registrar of KIIT, said collaboration with the best universities of the world is very important. “If the universities are not collaborating and students are not getting international exposure, the students of the institute may lose their relevance in the market at some point of time. We have already signed 130 MoUs with universities of 58 countries. This programme will help us in our constant endeavours,” she added.