What does it take to build a university that can keep pace with the changing expectations of higher education? Dr Atul Chauhan, Chancellor of Amity University Uttar Pradesh and President of the Amity Education Group, has spent decades overseeing that endeavour. We spoke to him to hear how he views the responsibilities of university leadership and the direction higher education must take.
1. How does Amity review its curricula, and what informs decisions to introduce or revise courses?
A: The higher education ecosystem stands at the cusp of one of the most defining periods in its history. With disruptive technological advancements shifting contemporary industry paradigms, the market demands today are virtually evolving by the minute.
Universities, as has been the case so far, cannot remain primarily places where students acquire knowledge. They must become places where students learn how to learn, unlearn and relearn.
And that is precisely why Amity University utilizes an adaptive and systematic framework for curricular evaluation and revision.
To maintain academic relevance and rigor, all our degree programs and constituent courses undergo a comprehensive, mandatory 360-degree triennial review. This major cyclical audit is supplemented by targeted, interim revisions executed as necessary to integrate emerging sectoral trends.
Central to this quality assurance model is the integration of external industry stakeholders within the curricular design lifecycle. Feedback from industry leaders serves as a primary metric for updating academic offerings. Furthermore, external sector experts maintain active representation across all vertical levels of institutional governance, including course-level committees, program review boards, and the University Academic Council.
Beyond advisory capacities, the university maintains strategic institutional-industrial partnerships with the likes of multinational conglomerate Tata, Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (UK) and CII among others to offer specialized programs across engineering, technology, management, and the health sciences. These collaborative curricula are mutually co-designed and co-delivered by industry practitioners and university faculty, ensuring a seamless translation of operational industry insights into the academic environment.
2. How much flexibility do students have to pursue academic interests beyond their chosen field of study?
A: In today’s fast-changing world, where innovative solutions to multipronged challenges are the need of the hour, it is essential to break rigid, mono-disciplinary silos with a flexible, holistic and multidisciplinary framework across school and higher education as the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 enshrines.
This has been our DNA for long, even before the NEP took formal shape as we realised that students need to have multiple avenues of learning. Amity University systematically integrates and promotes comprehensive multidisciplinary education, enabling students to bridge insights across STEM, management, and the humanities.
Leveraging an extensive institutional infrastructure that spans a vast array of academic areas, the university pioneered the "AMITY BOUNDLESS" pedagogical platform which allows undergraduates to select from a diverse portfolio of over 60 secondary major disciplines and more than 85 minor concentrations. Consequently, this flexible academic model positions Amity University as a leading institution capable of offering cross-disciplinary pathways across 100 distinct fields of study.
Student engagement metrics reflect an overwhelmingly positive reception to this initiative. Beyond traditional major-minor pairings, learners retain the autonomy to enrol in stand-alone unrestricted elective courses tailored to their unique academic interests. This degree of personalization empowers students to custom-design their own educational trajectories while rigorously maintaining the foundational core competencies of their primary degree programs.
3. What happens to research and student projects that show potential for commercial application?
A: Amity University is committed to nation-building through world-class education and path-breaking research. Amity operates a robust, multi-tiered innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem structured to transition early-stage academic research into commercially viable market ventures.
To achieve alignment with the National Education Policy (NEP 2020) and meet rigorous quality mandates, the institutional framework integrates academic coursework, infrastructure, and capitalized venture acceleration through five specialized pillars:
Academic and Pedagogical Integration: The Amity Centre for Entrepreneurship Development (ACED) serves as the central hub for formal entrepreneurship instruction. Under the NEP 2020 framework, the university has embedded structured, credit-bearing minor concentrations in Entrepreneurship and Innovation and Design directly into the undergraduate curriculum.
Ideation and Advanced Prototyping Infrastructure: Early-stage conceptualisation and empirical research are facilitated by the Amity Innovation Design Centre (AIDC). This facility provides the technical instrumentation and collaborative design infrastructure required to test scalable student and faculty ideas.
Technology Transition and Commercialization Support: Operational scaling and technology transfer are accelerated by the Technology Enabling Centre (TEC), supported by the Department of Science and Technology (DST), Government of India. The centre bridges the critical gap between functional laboratory prototypes and industrially viable products.
Distributed Network and Seed Capitalization: The physical incubation landscape consists of dedicated incubation centres across India, amplified by 17 virtual incubation hubs. To solve early-stage financing constraints, ventures are supported by Amity Capital Ventures and dedicated seed funds.
Ecosystem Engagement Metrics: The ecosystem sustains active stakeholder engagement through competitive multi-disciplinary Hackathons, milestone-driven venture-mentoring networks, and dedicated pipelines that have successfully nurtured over 200+ ventures and driven more than 40+ student and faculty-led startups into the mainstream market.
4. What academic opportunities do Amity’s international campuses offer students and faculty?
A: Our visionary Founder President Dr Ashok K Chauhan sees education as a collective duty to make sure every child gets the right to knowledge and grows into a responsible citizen who can tell right from wrong. He argues that education shapes a nation’s destiny, and that a sound education system is the biggest service one can do for the nation and humanity.
And this philosophy has been instrumental in strengthening Amity’s footprints not just in India but the world over. Spanning 11 countries, today Amity University maintains a comprehensive global academic and research network characterized by independent degree-awarding authority and strategic international collaborations. This transnational footprint is designed to facilitate high-impact scientific mobility, student exchange, and cross-border academic integration.
The institutional framework of Amity's global ecosystem is organized across the following core pillars:
Statutory Authorization and Degree Delivery: The international campuses in Dubai and Mauritius operate as fully autonomous, chartered degree-awarding entities recognized by their respective sovereign governments. Complementing this model, the campus in Tashkent is formally authorized by the Government of Uzbekistan to deliver Indian-accredited degree programs.
Global Research Optimization: The New York campus functions as a centralized Global Research Hub. This facility aggregates eminent international scientists and academicians from both Amity and external institutions to conduct collaborative, interdisciplinary research focused on pressing global societal challenges.
Transnational Academic Mobility: The London campus serves as a strategic gateway, offering structured pathways and academic opportunities for students within the United Kingdom higher education sector.
Global Networking and K-12 Extension: This unified global infrastructure connects faculty and students directly with leading regional scientists and scholars across multiple continents. Beyond higher education, the ecosystem incorporates an international K-12 schooling portfolio operating in key global locations, including Abu Dhabi, Muscat, and Norway.
Amity’s global partnerships have included student and faculty exchange, joint research, curriculum development and international progression pathways. But I consider the most valuable collaborations are those where the relationship eventually becomes part of the academic life of the university.
For me, as I always say, genuinely meaningful collaboration has three ingredients. First, there must be academic purpose. Second, students and faculty must be the pivot, and finally, there must be continuity.
5. What informs Amity’s approach to placements, and how does the university prepare students for employment after graduation?
A: Behind every placement statistic is a young person and a family hoping for a good future, so we start there. When hiring in traditional sectors shifts, the answer isn’t to chase the next trend. It’s to make sure our students are adaptable, curious and confident enough to move with whatever comes.
Anticipating the cross-sectoral disruption of emerging technologies and the geopolitical pivot toward sustainability, Amity University has systematically engineered an advanced ecosystem for deep-tech research and academic specialization.
Recognizing the macro-shift from conventional fossil fuels toward sustainable energy frameworks, alongside the rapid integration of Artificial Intelligence, the university has aligned its institutional objectives with major scientific and technological paradigm shifts. This forward-looking strategy is executed through several core pillars:
Advanced AI Infrastructure and Research: The university has established the state-of-the-art Amity Centre for Artificial Intelligence (ACAI). Equipped with high-performance computing infrastructure, including NVIDIA DGX systems, the Centre drives foundational research in Explainable AI (XAI), Generative AI, and Multimodal Machine Learning. It also serves as an experiential hub, capturing significant student engagement in deploying AI applications across healthcare, cybersecurity, and industrial automation.
Emerging Technology Curricula: To address expanding global talent deficits, Amity offers targeted degree programs, specialized electives, and structured academic minor disciplines across frontier fields. These include Data Analytics, Green Energy Systems, Quantum Technologies, and Space Sciences.
National Mission Alignment: To operationalize high-impact scientific research, the university has institutionalized three dedicated strategic frameworks: MISSION SPACE, MISSION QUANTUM, and MISSION HYDROGEN ENERGY. These initiatives are precisely mapped onto national science mandates and explicitly support the Government of India’s Viksit Bharat@2047 strategic vision for socio-economic and technological development
While broadening the learning horizon of our students, we do not measure our success only through the first offer letter. It is whether a graduate can build a meaningful career, retrain when needed and contribute to society. That is the spirit in which Amity approaches placements.
6. How does Amity approach faculty recruitment, retention and professional development? What support is available to faculty pursuing research?
A: Amity University prioritizes faculty retention as a core strategic pillar, recognizing that long-term academic expertise and human capital are vital for sustaining institutional values, pedagogical excellence, and the university's mission.
The continuity of senior leadership and faculty members — many of whom possess over two to three decades of institutional tenure — ensures that the core tenets of ethics, professionalism, and holistic value-based education are effectively transmitted to the student body. To cultivate a high-performance academic culture, the university implements an integrated ecosystem focused on extensive research autonomy, robust financial frameworks, and continuous workforce upskilling:
Research Autonomy and Strategic Funding: The institutional framework guarantees substantial scholastic freedom, supported by advanced laboratory instrumentation and comprehensive infrastructure. This is augmented by formal seed fund policies and financial support pipelines designed to facilitate national and international research mobility, conference presentations, and collaborative technical visits.
Institutional Support Ecosystem: Advanced empirical research and technology transfers are systematically driven by dedicated administrative and funding bodies:
Amity Science, Technology & Innovation Foundation (ASTIF): Functions as the primary body overseeing scientific research coordination, resource allocation, and international collaborations.
Amity Foundation for Science Technology & Innovation Alliances (AFSTIA): Acts as an internal think-tank that enhances research networking and assists faculty in securing competitive national and global grants.
Amity IPR Cell & Technology Enabling Centre (DST-TEC): Drive intellectual property management, patent filings, and the translation of prototypes into scalable commercial technologies.
Continuous Capacity Building: High institutional priority is allocated to professional development, continuous skilling, and targeted upskilling initiatives. Structured training programs are regularly executed to equip both academic faculty and technical staff with cutting-edge methodologies and evolving industry competencies.
7. How many students receive scholarships, and what determines the eligibility and distribution of these awards?
A: The Amity family believes that quality education should be both accessible and affordable. We maintain a comprehensive, philanthropy-driven financial aid policy designed to democratize access to higher education by supporting highly capable and deserving candidates.
Our scholarships go a long way in encouraging academic excellence, and promoting diversity by supporting learners from varied socio-economic backgrounds.
Till date, the university has awarded prestigious Amity Scholarships to over 50,000 meritorious students, ensuring that academic excellence is sustained across diverse student cohorts. To ensure wide institutional reach and equitable access, the financial support architecture is systematically categorized across multiple targeted aid portfolios:
Academic Excellence and Entry Benchmarks:
Merit-Based Scholarships: Awarded to students demonstrating exceptional performance in qualifying board examinations.
Entrance-Exam-Based Scholarships: Dedicated to high-achievers who excel in national and institutional entrance tests.
Specialized Talent and Civic Recognition:
Champs Sports Scholarships: Structured to support elite athletes and sports professionals maintaining exceptional athletic standards alongside academic pursuits.
Defence Personnel & Martyr’s Scholarships: Dedicated fee-concession and financial assistance frameworks honoring the service of active defense personnel and the dependents of martyred service members.
Inclusivity and Institutional Continuity:
Divyaang Scholarships: Targeted financial aid designed to support students with physical and locomotor disabilities, fostering an inclusive learning environment.
Amity Alumni Scholarships: Fee-concession initiatives aimed at promoting continuous, lifelong learning and academic progression among the university's global alumni network.
8. What role do digital technologies and artificial intelligence currently play in teaching and learning at Amity?
A: Merely owning AI infrastructure doesn’t make a university AI-ready. What makes it ready is its people, the way they teach, what they teach, and the culture they build together, all prepared for a world where AI is part of everyday life.
The real progress is quieter than the announcements suggest. I see it most in personalised learning. A student who is struggling can get one more patient explanation at two in the morning. I see it in research, where faculty use AI to help with literature reviews, simulations and data analysis, so they have more time for the deep thinking that matters. And I see it in students from smaller towns who can now get the kind of tutoring that used to be a privilege of the few.
The support also adapts to the learner. Someone who needs help can get simpler explanations and extra practice, while a student who is racing ahead can be given harder material to stretch into.
Amity University strategically leverages AI and advanced computing architecture to optimize both academic operations and institutional administration.
To maintain a cutting-edge technological infrastructure, the university utilizes a dedicated, in-house team of over 200 software developers and systems engineers.
The university’s digital ecosystem is governed by three operational pillars:
Proprietary Learning Management Systems (LMS): For over a decade, Amity has pioneered blended learning frameworks through its specialized LMS architectures, which integrate advanced virtual classrooms, automated progress tracking, and 24/7 AI-driven academic support conversational engine.
Crisis Resilience and Digital Scalability: The robust, pre-existing IT infrastructure allowed Amity to become an early mover in India to transition into a 100% fully synchronous online education delivery model during the COVID-19 pandemic. This digital agility facilitated the seamless execution of multiple consecutive, high-stakes examination cycles across all domestic and offshore campuses without academic interruption.
Balanced Blended Learning Architecture: While aggressively advancing its digital capabilities, the institutional framework strictly maintains an optimal equilibrium between virtual education and traditional face-to-face instruction. This hybrid model ensures that pedagogical quality, rigorous peer-to-peer classroom engagement, and critical hands-on laboratory or practical sessions are fully preserved without compromise.
9. What are Amity's priorities for the next decade, and how does the university intend to measure its progress?
A: A university should look five or ten years ahead to see what will be needed. Labs, incubators and industry partnerships are the practical form of that idea.
Amity University systematically benchmarks its operational metrics, pedagogical frameworks, and research outputs against elite global higher education institutions (HEIs).
Over the next decade, the university's strategic trajectory is directed toward securing a position among the world’s leading research-intensive 100 universities. To achieve this global standing, the institutional master plan focuses on five core development pillars:
Interdisciplinary Innovation and Frontier Disciplines: The academic roadmap prioritizes the expansion of cross-disciplinary degree programs and cutting-edge specialisations. These curricula are precisely aligned with emerging global technological megatrends and vital national development missions.
Transnational Academic Mobility: The university is expanding its global network to facilitate seamless, cross-border student and faculty mobility. This is supported by credit-transfer agreements, dual-degree pathways, and international research collaborations across its global campuses.
Holistic Student-Centric Ecosystem: Amity provides a comprehensive developmental environment designed to optimize the student lifecycle. The framework balances technical proficiency and professional competency with socio-ethical responsibility, cultivating globally competitive citizens who contribute meaningfully to civil society.
Global-Standard Sustainable Infrastructure: The campus architecture integrates state-of-the-art, globally benchmarked research laboratories and learning spaces with inclusive, high-comfort residential facilities for students, creating an optimal ecosystem for academic focus and student well-being.
Socio-Economic Value Creation: Moving beyond traditional employment pipelines, the university's primary institutional mandate is to foster an entrepreneurial mindset. By transforming graduates into job providers and venture creators rather than job seekers, Amity directly accelerates sustainable macroeconomic development and nation-building.
As we strive relentlessly to make the vision of Viksit Bharat 2047 a reality, we don’t just need graduates; we need more nation builders — people willing to design, make and lead from within this country rather than only aspiring to leave it in quest of greener pastures. And Amity University is committed to be one of the strongest pillars in the road ahead.