The initiative “A New Passage to India” (ANPtI) aims to increase young German academics’ understanding of India; bring German and Indian students, graduates and doctoral candidates into contact with each other’s world of work and research; and strengthen mutual awareness of each country as a research destination.

The programme includes four funding components:

• The Indo-German Partnerships higher education cooperation programme
• The higher education cooperation programme Indo-German Partnership in Higher Education (expired)
• The Working Internships in Science and Engineering (WISE) scholarship programme for individuals
• The Indo-German Centre for Sustainability (IGCS) in Chennai, a cooperative project between RWTH Aachen and IIT Madras

Background

Germany and India have successfully strengthened their academic relations in recent years through active government action. The BMBF-funded programme “A New Passage to India”, which has been supporting and reinforcing exchange between Germany and India with great success since 2009, has played an important part here. Its cooperation and exchange measures have served to enhance mutual interests, country-specific knowledge and intercultural skills. The programme has been subject to continuous development in terms of its content and design, and has thus addressed the interests of the changing higher education systems in both countries. One result of this adaptation process is the co-financed cooperative partnerships within the Indo-German Partnerships programme launched in 2016.

Programme objectives

A New Passage to India has the following objectives:

• Expansion of Indo-German academic collaboration on a broad basis
• Education and training of German and Indian junior academics, based on international standards and covering a broad range of areas.

Indo-German Partnerships

The Indo-German Partnerships programme aims to promote the internationalisation of German and Indian universities by intensifying cooperative collaboration at an institutional level and developing and delivering innovative teaching and research profiles for Master’s and PhD programmes. The programme is financed equally by Germany and India.

Indo-German Partnerships in Higher Education

The aim of this programme, which is funded entirely by the DAAD, is to increase young German academics’ understanding of India through higher education cooperation and to conduct joint application-oriented research and teaching in Germany and India as part of this cooperation. The programme moreover seeks to develop innovative and sustainable forms of cooperation such as joint graduate or doctoral programmes or joint research projects funded by research promotion institutions.

Working Internships in Science and Engineering (WISE)

Exceptional students (undergraduates) from selected Indian universities are introduced to Germany as a destination for academic studies and research at an early stage by receiving the opportunity to support doctoral students and university teachers in their work. The scholarship holders spend two to three months in Germany completing practical laboratory training in the natural sciences and engineering sciences.

Indo-German Centre for Sustainability (IGCS) in Chennai

The establishment of a centre of excellence for sustainability in Chennai (Indo-German Centre for Sustainability – IGCS) as a cooperative project between RWTH Aachen and IIT Madras gives German and Indian researchers the opportunity to jointly carry out interdisciplinary teaching and research in the fields of energy, water, land use and waste management and build a German-Indian network in this area.

 

 

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