2-day meet focuses on heritage network in Warangal

Warangal: The two-day meeting of the steering and executive committee of heritage network commenced here on National Institute of Technology, Warangal, (NITW) campus on Monday. The meeting was aimed at discussing the various ways of taking the activities of the Heritage Network forward and to prepare the roadmap. The Heritage project is a part of Erasmus Mundus launched by Ecole Centrale de Nantes, France, to form an active group among the best European and Indian Higher Education partners in the field of science and technology.

Apart from NITW, the other Indian institutes involved in the project are... IIT Madras, IIT Guwahati, IISc Bangalore, IIT Kanpur, IIT Mumbai, Anna University, NIT Rourkela, ISM Dhanbad and IIT Roorkee. It is to be noted that the performance of NITW in the mobility under Heritage Network is the highest among all the Indian network partners.

NITW Director Prof NV Ramana Rao said that this programme is a cooperation and mobility programme in the field of higher education that aims to enhance the quality of European higher education and to promote dialogue and understanding between people and cultures through cooperation with developing countries.

The project also contributes to the development of human resources and the international cooperation capacity of Higher Education Institutions in developing counties by increasing mobility between the European Union and these countries, he said.

He said that the project provides support for the establishment of cooperation partnerships between European Higher Education Institutions and Higher Education Institutions from targeted developing countries with the objective of organising and implementing structured individual mobility arrangements between the European and developing country partners. This programme also provides scholarships of various lengths – depending on the priories defined for the developing country concerned, the level of studies or the particular arrangements agreed within the partnership – for European and developing country for students, scholars, researchers and professionals.

The European institutions included in the project are... Centrale de Nantes, University of Seville, Spain, Instituto Superior Tecnico, Portugal, Warsaw University of Technology, Poland, Technical University Munich, Germany, Politecnico di Milano, Italy, Politecnico di Torino, Italy, Tallinn University of Technology, Estonia and Czech Technical University, Czech Republic.

The European delegation to the Heritage meeting consists of Prof. Fouad Bennis, President Heritage Network, Prof Frédéric Dorel from Ecole Centrale de Nantes, France and Prof Teresa Zielińska, Warsaw University of Technology, Warsaw Poland, while the Indian team consists of Prof NV Ramana Rao, Director NIT Warangal, Prof KV Jayakumar, Dean International Relations & Alumni Affairs, NIT Warangal, Prof Rakhi Chaturvedi, Dean, Alumni & External Relations, IIT Guwahati and Vice-President, Heritage Network and GR Kavitha, General Manager, International Relations, IIT Madras.

NITW Registrar S Goverdhan Rao and Leslie Cubizolle of Ecole Centrale de Nantes were present. Ana Pipio, Institute Superior Tecnico, Portugal participated in the meeting through Skype.