The Indian Maritime University (IMU) here has signed agreements with several national and international organisations for exchange of information on research and educational programmes, the varsity's Vice Chancellor Malini V Shankar said on Wednesday.

Short-term training programmes, seminars, webinars, conferences and workshops on topics of mutual interest will be organised jointly as per the MoU.

Also, there will be exchange of faculty and students for limited purposes of education and research, she said.

Some of the organisations which signed the MoU with IMU include the Dredging Corporation of India, National Institute of Ocean Technology, VOC Port Trust, and Institute of Marine Engineers, India.

MoUs were signed with the Admiral Ushakov Maritime University, Ministry of Blue Economy, Marine Resources, Fisheries and Shipping, Mauritius, Batangas University, Philippines, and Erasmus University, Netherlands on the international level.

Speaking to reporters here, the Vice Chancellor said the curriculum has been overhauled to make it industry relevant in line with the National Education Policy, 2020.

Accordingly, micro credit courses, table top exercises, electives and option to graduates in minor disciplines were introduced.

Some of the academic initiatives undertaken include establishing a chair for taking up research and consultancy projects, systemic improvement in exams / evaluation methods to build critical thinking skills in cadets and installing state of the art simulators in emerging areas to improve cadet learning experience, she said.

This Central University has 3,115 students on its rolls on six campuses in Chennai, Kochi, Kolkata, Mumbai, Navi Mumbai and Visakhapatnam besides 2,735 students in 18 affiliated maritime training institutes.