Travel to India yields new alliances

April 11, 2008

The College of Engineering recently sent a delegation of about 15 people on a two-week excursion to India, but it was hardly a holiday.

The delegates, from all Engineering departments as well as the Saskatchewan Research Council, visited 16 different Indian institutions from March 3 – 16 as part of an initiative to create new international partnerships and build on those already in place. Ajay Dalai, professor of Chemical Engineering, said because the college depends largely on foreign students, faculty and scientists to achieve local research objectives, such delegations are invaluable.

I personally see lots of potential with the institutes that we visited. I think those are the premiere institutes in India, and they are excited to work with us as well,” said Dalai. “Nobody was ever just sitting idle. We all had a lot of things to do and had to work really hard because this is so important for the college.”

Dalai said the delegates met with their counterparts at various institutions, spending their time either networking informally or exploring possible agreements for research partnerships and student exchanges. A number of delegates also gave formal presentations while in India, advocating the strong provincial and federal research centres and resources already located at the U of S.

The college sets aside about $150,000 annually to fund international activities, said Dalai, and has identified three countries—India, China and Germany—to focus its resources towards. The Dean of Engineering, Janusz Kozinski, was part of a campus-wide delegation that travelled to China in the fall of 2007, and he established various partnerships during that trip. Dalai said those relationships, as well as the ones now in place in India, have given the college a solid footing in the increasingly competitive realm of international partnerships for academic institutions.

However, he cautioned against moving too quickly into Germany for fear of spreading the college’s resources too thin.

I think we have to take one step at a time. We need to digest what we have done, how we follow-up and what we do next rather than rushing into another country. We don’t want to lose our credibility; we want to build on our success so that both parties benefit.”