These academic exchange programmes were finalised under the patronage of Frédérique Vidal, Minister of Higher Education, Research and Innovation, and his Indian counterpart, Prakash Javadekar, Minister for Human Resource Development, in the context of the Knowledge Summit, the first Franco-Indian Summit for University, scientific and Technology Cooperation.
Held in New Delhi, in the context of President Macron's official visit to India, the bilateral summit was the setting for the signing of a Franco-Indian agreement on the mutual recognition of degrees, and the creation of the Franco-Indian Fund of Education to improve mobility between the two countries. President Macron was accompanied by Paul Friedel, president of IMT Atlantique, Yann Busnel, Head of the Department of Networks, Cybersecurity, and Digital Law, and Gilles Coppin, president of Lab-STICC (a French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) laboratory in the field of information and communication science and technology). Two memoranda of understanding were signed with two prestigious engineering schools, the Indian Institutes of Technology (ITT) of Indore and Madras.
The agreements, signed respectively between IIT Indore and IMT Atlantique, and IIT Madras and IMT Atlantique for Lab-STICC via the CNRS, allow for Indian engineering students to study at IMT Atlantique and IMT Atlantique students to do internships and study in India. These agreements also open the way for staff exchanges and joint teaching modules; researcher, doctoral and post-doctoral student exchanges; and joint research programmes. The agreement with IIT Madras mirrors an agreement between Thales and IIT Madras, also signed during the Knowledge Summit, which allows for theses to be jointly supervised by IMT Atlantique, Lab-STICC and IIT Madras, to be financed by the industrial sector. The first of these theses should be underway by the end of 2018.
by Pierre-Hervé VAILLANT