Mitch Daniels, President of Purdue University, Indiana, was in India recently. He says the university, which is known for its research work, is looking to strengthen its ties in India by collaborating with various Indian institutions and corporates.
What is the agenda for your visit to India?
My visit is aimed at encouraging more collaborative research and partnerships with India on both corporate and institutional levels. Strengthening ties with thousands of Purdue alumni residing here is central to my visit.
Purdue has seen a lot of Indian students. How do you see this relationship? Are you looking to broaden its scope?
Indian students are the second largest population of international students at Purdue, which currently has 1,681 Indian students — 819 undergraduates and 862 masters and PhD students. This number is on the rise; our current enrolment of Indian students is 28 per cent higher than the numbers in 2012.
Most Indian students — 1,018 of 1,681 — currently study engineering. This is great, but we would like to see more Indian students looking at other disciplines as well. We offer 200 majors within 10 colleges and schools, so there are many good programmes to choose from. We also have a strong and growing alumni network in India and are making efforts to strengthen it by supporting events here.
What role do you see Purdue playing in the Indian education and research environment? Does the varsity have plans to explore more partnerships?
We conducted a survey in 2012 and, even with incomplete response rates, learnt that more than 40 faculty had 80 ongoing partnerships with about 45 institutions in India.
While this breadth is impressive, we are now focused on depth and strengthening partnerships with a number of these institutions, including Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs). For example, one of our faculty members from Computer and Electrical Engineering, Dr Anand Ragunanthan, is spending the year as chair of a new Centre for Computational Brain Research at IIT Madras.
Purdue also has a growing number of corporate partnerships with Indian companies. We signed an MoU with Dr Reddy’s Labs in Hyderabad in July to strengthen pharmaceutical research and development. Areas of planned collaborative research and education include targeted drug delivery, manufacturing technology, scale-up of pharmaceutical operations, and process engineering. The collaboration will include student engagement and faculty exchanges and may include a site at the Purdue Research Park.
Purdue is known for its research work. How has this process evolved and how do you see the Indian education system making greater strides in this space?
Research is a core component of our strategic plan. More than 100 Purdue faculty members of Indian origin play an important role in Purdue’s research ecosystem. In fact, the two highest leadership positions at Purdue under the presidency, are occupied by Indian professors.
We are also focussed on innovation. In fiscal year 2015, Purdue had 178 US and global patents, and 131 licensing deals. Furthermore, 49 start-ups were born at the university last year, 25 of which were based on Purdue intellectual property.
Is Purdue looking at foraying into new areas in the education and research spheres?
We are looking at a new initiative in Life Sciences and have invested more than $60 million to enhance our life sciences research and graduate education programmes. We are also looking at strategic investments in advancing drug discovery from lab to commercialisation, and advancing plant sciences research.