Call for projects - UQ-IITD joint PhD program

The UQ- IITD Academy of Research (Academy) is a joint venture with the key focus on a transnational joint PhD program. The Academy aims to attract the best global talent including elite students, academics, researchers and scientists to work on goal directed, cross-disciplinary grand challenges that are of interest to Australia, India and the global community and that also align with UQ and IITD research strengths. The expectation is that, over time, prominent research institutes in and around New Delhi would be invited to join the Academy as Associate Partners in order to expand the research into a broad-based, multi-disciplinary collaboration spanning Medicine, Biology, Biotechnology, Agriculture, STEM, Humanities, and Economics disciplines.

The collaboration will also enable the establishment of a mobility or fellowship scheme to enable academics and postdoctoral fellows to spend time at each institute, expanding and deepening research collaborations and offering career development opportunities for early career researchers.

The Academy will yield significant benefits to both UQ and IITD including:

• Enhanced research links, enriching the research endeavour of both institutions and enabling interdisciplinary research that tackles global issues at grander scale;
• Opportunities to access international research and industry funding;
• Increase industry engagement to support international internships and placements for students at both institutions;
• Increase the number of PhD graduates and contribution to national research outputs;
• Increase enrolments from the best and brightest students through attractive program offerings and expanded mobility opportunities;
• Provide opportunities for UQ and IITD to attract elite students from countries such as Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Nepal into the program; and
• Heightened profile for both institutions nationally as well as globally.

The UQ-IITD collaboration will also involve strong industry linkages whereby from year two, industry will partner to support PhD students and projects. At a steady state, it is expected that one third of the joint PhD students will be supported by industry funding and through direct industry engagement determined by their research projects. Industry engagement is expected to be mainly from (but not limited to) Australian and Indian Industry.