New Delhi, 20 January 2021: The University of Queensland (UQ), a top 50 global university, and IIT Delhi, an Institution of Eminence, had come together and established the UQ-IITD Academy of Research (UQIDAR) to run a joint PhD programme to support scholars across diverse discipline areas to deliver global impact.

The UQIDAR aims to train a large number of students under the joint PhD programme, supervised by professors at both UQ and IIT Delhi.

The programme, which is now two years old, has already attracted over 65 top PhD scholars in various disciplines. At a steady state, the scale target for the UQIDAR is to have approximately 300 students enrolled in the joint PhD programme in the next three years.

This will mean enrolling and graduating approximately 70 PhD students per year.

The UQIDAR seeks to attract the best global talent, including high performing students, academics, researchers and scientists to work on goal – directed, cross – disciplinary grand challenges that are of significance to Australia, India and the global community.

The UQIDAR students will spend time in both India and Australia. Students from India will typically spend three years at IIT Delhi and one year at UQ and students from Australia will spend three years at UQ and one year at IIT Delhi.

While inaugurating the permanent office of the UQIDAR at IIT Delhi, Prof V. Ramgopal Rao, Director, IIT Delhi said, “IIT Delhi lays great emphasis on 3 I’s i.e. Internationalization, Interdisciplinary Research and Industry connect. Our collaboration with the University of Queensland, Australia is going great guns and has all the three elements. UQIDAR is attracting some of the top talent and many of these students are doing cutting edge research on problems of global importance”.

The UQIDAR will leverage a shared history of research excellence to focus on interdisciplinary themes. The five identified themes that are highly relevant today are:

• Healthy Ageing
• Feeding the World
• Resilient Environment
• Technology for Tomorrow
• Transforming Societies

 “The deep expertise that exists within UQ and IIT Delhi is ready, willing and able to help respond to the great challenges of our times – whether that be climate change, natural disasters, famine or a virus. The partnership between the two universities is focused on strengthening multi-disciplinary research collaboration as we seek to find solutions to these types of threats,” said Prof Deborah Terry AO, President and Vice-Chancellor, The University of Queensland, Australia.

The UQIDAR is interested in developing strong sponsorships and partnerships with the relevant government ministries and industries. Industry sponsors will support the UQIDAR from branding and corporate social responsibility perspectives, and may sponsor several PhD students. Industry partners are likely to be interested in research outcomes from projects being explored within the UQIDAR, and may present ideas or specifications for the research projects.

The UQIDAR is headed by the CEO Dr. Rajeev Shorey, who has over 20 years of experience working in some of the highly reputed industrial R&D labs in the country. Prof. Nidhi Jain, Department of Chemistry, IIT Delhi, serves as the Professor-in-Charge of the Academy of Research.

Those interested in applying under this program may visit the website www.uqidar.org  and get more information.