The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : Madras, Anna universities sign MoU

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Aug 23, 2005

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Madras, Anna universities sign MoU

Special Correspondent

Ph.D. candidates can do course work at either university "The expertise available with both universities would be used to develop technological tools for the State's socio-economic development"

CHENNAI: The University of Madras and Anna University entered into a collaborative agreement here on Monday to facilitate mutual knowledge transfer and academic exchanges.

Joint research

As per the memorandum of understanding signed by K. Jayaraman, Anna University Registrar and S. Karunanidhi, Registrar-in-charge, University of Madras — the two would jointly pursue research in niche areas of both universities, promote interaction among the staff of various departments and generate inter-disciplinary research projects.

University of Madras Vice-Chancellor S.P. Thyagarajan and Anna University Vice-Chancellor D. Viswanathan were also present during the signing.

On the anvil is sharing of expertise of foreign guest lecturers/visiting faculty, permitting Ph.D. candidates to do coursework at either university and enabling faculty members of both institutions to be joint research supervisors.

Both institutions would collaborate in areas such as life sciences, linguistic and language technologies, information science and technology, management science, environmental sciences and other areas of mutual interest.

"With this MoU, we hope to make Tamil Nadu the frontrunner in higher education. The expertise available with both universities would be used to develop technological tools for the State's socio-economic development. We also hope to attract experts and financial resources for rapid industrialisation of the State,'' Dr. Viswanathan told reporters. "This is a preamble to ensure that major centres of excellence in research and academia come up around our universities,'' Dr. Thyagarajan added.

Panel to review MoU

A monitoring committee would review the outcome of the MoU periodically and the pact is valid for three years and is renewable.

Anna University was also holding discussions with IIT Madras to facilitate similar academic exchanges, Dr. Viswanathan said.

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