Stevens and Malaviya National Institute of Technology Jaipur sign Memorandum of Understanding

HOBOKEN, N.J. ― Stevens Institute of Technology has signed an agreement with Malaviya National Institute of Technology Jaipur (MNIT), one of India’s top-ranked technical universities, that further strengthens the institute’s ties to this fast-growing hub of innovation in South Asia and its globally oriented research community.

The memorandum of understanding between the two universities, signed by Dr. Raj Pal Dahiya, Director of MNIT and senior officials of Stevens last month, encourages faculty and student exchanges and promotes joint research in areas such as environmental engineering and engineering management.

It adds a new dimension to Stevens’ relationships with foreign universities by establishing a new program, called a Four-plus-One, that paves the way for promising Indian students to earn master’s degrees in science and engineering at Stevens in just two semesters, right after they complete their four-year undergraduate program.

“The Four-plus-One is a little unique, because it allows the students to take some graduate courses at their home university while they are still undergraduates,” said Dr. Edward Stohr, professor and co-director of the Center for Technology Management Research at the Howe School of Technology Management. To earn credits toward their degree, the Indian students can take approved courses offered by MNIT.

“We need to develop strong relationships overseas, and this agreement allows us to develop a broad range of activities,” Stohr said of the agreement with MNIT, whose faculty he described as “top scientists who are pursuing research that it is complementary to the research at Stevens.”

In addition to environmental engineering and engineering management, the two schools share a focus on renewable energy and clean water technologies.

“The advantage for Stevens is to get quality students from this premier technical institute of national importance,” said Dr. Raj Pal Dahiya, Director of MNIT, who was in Hoboken last month to sign the agreement. “The advantage for our students will be they get an international-level education.”

Following the agreement five faculty members from MNIT are now on a visit to the campus to discuss areas for possible cooperative research and education, and the first student exchanges will likely take place either next fall or spring. For now, MNIT students will be able to pursue graduate degrees at the Howe School of Technology Management, the School of Systems and Enterprise Management and the School of Engineering.

Stevens has been steadily expanding ties with foreign universities throughout the world, including in China, France, Bulgaria, and the Dominican Republic, as well as with other universities in India. These academic partnerships often include joint master’s programs, student and faculty exchanges and collaborative research. Stevens has established programs, with faculty in place, on some of these campuses.

“Every university is trying to work with universities globally. There is so much talent abroad that we can’t afford not to have these relationships,” said Stohr.

“And if we’re going to be global, we need to have programs in other countries. It is very important to have a presence, from the standpoint of establishing a reputation in a country and attracting its top students,” he added.

He said Stevens has been mulling the Four-plus-One program for about a year.

“We visited a number of schools in India last year and talked about the idea. For us, it helps attract high-quality master’s degree and Ph.D. students, and for those students, it reduces the cost of the program because they can take some courses at their home school,” Stohr said, adding that Stevens is planning to extend the program to other universities.

He noted that India was a natural place to start.

“We would like to have a diverse student body, and we already have a lot of Indian students and contacts there,” he said.

Last June, for example, Stevens and the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi co-hosted a conference on the Hoboken campus, ‘Flexible Enterprise for Global Business,’ that brought together researchers, business representatives, policy makers and students from both countries to share research and explore business opportunities. That same summer, two professors from IIT Delhi taught courses at Stevens in finance and flexible organizations.

Stohr said another area of shared interest between Stevens and MNIT is technology incubation. MNIT was recently awarded a patent, for example, for its solar chimney, an environmentally sustainable device for ventilating buildings.

“We have a mutual interest in Technogenesis – seeing concepts and ideas through to commercial development – and there would be opportunities for joint licensing and commercialization,” Stohr said, noting, “Developing markets provide tremendous opportunities for U.S. business.”

Dahiya said, “There are also important applications to pursue in the area of global development, such as improving water quality and supply and developing renewable energy. For all of these reasons, we are one global community.”

He further remarked, “Air, water and the land are of common concern of all people on the globe and we need global movements to take care of them. Laws of nature don’t know geopolitical boundaries.”

He added that joint projects will expand opportunities to secure research money from both Indian and American funding agencies.

And while the economic downturn has prompted some to call for protectionist measures, scholars say that concerns over intellectual property do not prevent them from collaborating.

“Knowledge is global,” Dahiya said. “Intellectual property must be shared, because knowledge that is shared grows. These could be underlying principles in the global context.”

The agreement between the two universities calls for an exchange of faculty, including stays of up to 12 months, and joint supervision of Ph.D. students from both schools.

While it is more common for foreign students to come to the U.S. to study, Stohr said stints at universities abroad are increasingly valuable for American students and researchers.

“Our faculty and students need to understand global issues from the perspective of other cultures,” he said, adding, “India is like us in many ways – it’s democratic, capitalistic and technologically advanced – but we each need to better understand each other’s business cultures.”

He said that some Ph.D. students at Stevens may choose to spend a semester at the 46-year-old university in Jaipur, known as India’s ‘pink city’ for the color of its stone walls.

Training technology workers is a national priority for India, Dahiya said, in noting that the government has added eight new Indian Institutes of Technology over the past two years.

“There has been a sea change in technical education in India in recent years, in terms of quality and quantity. This includes expanding the number of international collaborations and the number of students encouraged to take up real-life projects as part of their education,” he said.

“But we have a concern in India, which is all pervading the world over, and that is a shortage of faculty, as the number of technical universities has grown and so is the student population with it. We are hoping that many of these students will study here and then come back and teach.”

About Stevens Institute of Technology

Founded in 1870, Stevens Institute of Technology is one of the leading technological universities in the world dedicated to learning and research. Through its broad-based curricula, nurturing of creative inventiveness, and cross disciplinary research, the Institute is at the forefront of global challenges in engineering, science, and technology management. Partnerships and collaboration between, and among, business, industry, government and other universities contribute to the enriched environment of the Institute. A new model for technology commercialization in academe, known as Technogenesis®, involves external partners in launching business enterprises to create broad opportunities and shared value.

Stevens offers baccalaureates, master’s and doctoral degrees in engineering, science, computer science and management, in addition to a baccalaureate degree in the humanities and liberal arts, and in business and technology. The university has a total enrollment of 2,150 undergraduate and 3,500 graduate students, with about 250 full-time faculty. Stevens’ graduate programs have attracted international participation from China, India, Southeast Asia, Europe and Latin America. Additional information may be obtained from its web page at www.stevens.edu.  

For the latest news about Stevens, please visit StevensNewsService.com.