Prof VK Tewari, Director, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kharagpur has emphasised the importance of branding the world-class technology institution and asserted that it will rank among the top ten universities in the world by 2030.
Tewari made these comments last week during a virtual meeting with the alumni, PTI reports.
He said, "We need to do a lot of branding as IIT KGP, we need to work on our limitations, we have to work on certain areas", advocating the need "for involving students in a more cohesive manner".
IIT Kharagpur is the first IIT in the country, he said.
"We have to think very very big. We have to take strong steps, we have to follow Modi ji's ideal for an Atmanirbhar Bharat. We should be targeting to be among the top 10 in the world," he added.
Tewari said, "The Hon'ble President said 50. One of our senior officials set the target of being within 25. However, I am setting the target to be within the top 10 higher educational institutions in the world," referring to the call by President Droupadi Murmu to propel IIT Kharagpur among the top 50 in the world in the convocation held in December 2023.
IIT Kharagpur's overall ranking in the QS Asia World University Ranking for 2024 was fifth in India and 59th in Asia.
With an overall score of 54.5, the largest and first IIT in the nation debuted at the top of the QS Asia University rankings, the university announced in a statement on November 11.
Tewari asserted that by 2030, IIT Kharagpur will rank in the top ten universities worldwide.
He called for a greater number of partnerships with highly regarded international universities for the institute to open up and proposed additional academic-industry cooperation which it required to work with faculty and alumni.
"The Defence Research & Development Organisation (DRDO) set up a centre of excellence (DIA-CoE) for futuristic study in high-end technology subjects, in AI (Artificial Intelligence), in the sphere of safety analytics, in computational and data sciences, etc," he added.
Tewari stated that IIT Kharagpur has been formally classified as a centre of excellence (CoE) in urban planning and design, which was made possible by the faculty and students' consistent exemplary work.
As part of that, the centre would provide a grant of Rs 250 crore to the organisation in the coming years to support the creation and training of India-specific knowledge in urban planning and design.
