Morning Session (9 AM to 1 PM, IME Conference Hall)

1. The meeting started at 9 AM in the IME Conference Room. Prof. Indranil Manna, Director, IIT Kanpur, welcomed the participants, made a detailed presentation and outlined the theme of the workshop. The subsequent presentations by different institutes were primarily to steer the discussions towards creating a roadmap for education and research policies. The outcome of this exercise would be policy documents on education and research. The initial draft will be prepared in the next few months and the final report will be made available to the Ministry by early 2016.

2. Directors of three IITs (IIT Kanpur, IIT Kharagpur and IIT Rorkee) participated in the workshop. Faculty members from 10 IITs and IISc Bangalore participated in the workshop. The list of attendees is provided in Appendix I.

3. Prof. Manna, in his inaugural presentation, introduced IMPRINT India to delegates. He presented an overview of the current state of education in India in terms of educational institutions, the gross enrollment ratios, school and higher education, the number of engineering graduates and overall expenditure on education in India vis-a-vis other nations in the world. He then explained various domains, ten in all, selected under IMPRINT, ranging from health care to advanced materials to environment and climate changes. He went into the genesis of IMPRINT and how it was influenced by 21st century Grand Challenges identified in USA resulting from the initiative of President Barak Obama. Prof. Manna explained the two important mandates of the program: (i) to come up with an education policy from school onwards, which is in coherence with the mandated domains of IMPRINT and (ii) to come up with research policy and recommend ways to assess the nation’s research & technology needs specially in terms of the new development priorities, and status of our readiness in terms of manpower, research infrastructure, and resources. He then presented the list of various domains and the corresponding lead institutions (Appendix II provides the list along with names of theme leaders and tentative list of team members).

4. Prof. Manna then invited the directors of participating institutions to share their views.

5. Prof. Pradipta Banerjee, Director, IIT Roorkee, highlighted the importance of this national initiative. He also mentioned that it will be a hard task but it provides us with an opportunity to realign ourselves and create policies on research and education for the future. He emphasized the importance of having frequent meetings of various teams to creating the templates, distributing the work, collecting relevant data, etc.

6. Presentations on various domains were made next theme leaders

(i) Health care: IIT Kharagpur

Prof. Goutam Saha presented on health care highlighting on importance of education as a tool, R&D towards self sufficiency, and the synergy of science, engineering and management.

Discussion: Need to identify centre of excellence; Need to include traditional health care

(i) Computer Science and ICT: IIT Kharagpur

Prof. Anupam Basu presented the scope of CS and ICT in various domains and highlighted the need for development of self-reliant technology focused on pedagogy. Discussion: CS and ICT caters to many domains and important domains like cyber security need focused attention.

(iii) Energy : IIT Bombay

Prof. K. Balasubramaniam briefed about energy related activities at IIT Bombay. Discussion: How do we map technological challenges to educational roadmap? Team should deliberate on the issue of human development index and energy consumption.

(iv) Sustainable Urban Design : IIT Roorkee

Prof. Pradipta Banerjee presented several ideas.

Discussion: Holistic approach is needed for sustainable urban design. Water recycling is still a challenge. Policy can play a significant role here.

(v) Nano-technology Hardware: IIT Bombay

Prof. Dipankar Saha highlighted the need for manufacturing of electronic goods in India and the challenges ahead.

Discussion: Lack of opportunities for trained manpower is an issue and needs attebntion.

(vi) Water Resources and River systems: IIT Kanpur

Prof. Purnendu Bose presented briefly on water resources and river systems and emphasized on importance of water for various needs including rivers. Discussion: There is a need to educate people on importance of water conservation at all levels including agricultural sector.

(vii) Advance Materials: IIT Kanpur

Prof. Manna presented the list of important advanced materials important for the nation and explained the critical role materials play in various domains Discussion: Need for materials cut across various domains, Material for sensors, for example. These should get highlighted in our policy document.

(viii) Manufacturing: IIT Madras

There was no presentation and the name of the coordinator or the list of participants from IIT Madras is yet to be informed

(ix) Defense: IIT Madras

There was no presentation and the name of the coordinator or the list of participants from IIT Madras is yet to be informed

(x) Environmental Science and Climate Change: IISc, Bangalore

Prof. Ravi Nanjundiah presented the broad areas to be covered under this theme. Discussion: Climate change and water resources are linked and should be looked together.

Afternoon session (2 – 5 PM, Conference Room, Visitors Hostel, IIT Kanpur)

Afternoon session was devoted to seeking opinion and suggestions from individuals and holding free-wheeling discussion. The summary of this session is noted below.

Prof. Manna started the discussion by inviting participants to share their views on two broad areas of focus: Education and Research. In education, the focus will be on how do we introduce topics of national interests at various levels (primary, secondary and higher secondary levels). At engineering colleges, how do we align UG, Masters and PhD projects with research themes? For research policy, we have 10 themes. Research policies on these themes will identify where do we want to go, what are the gaps and how do we bridge the gap.

Prof. P P Chakrabarti: Contours of overall report should be known. The output of this exercise should be known. All research themes are not mutually exclusive. Connection should be clearly identified. Like, climate change and water resources are connected. ICT and materials are connected to many. Also, there should be identification of core programs, mission oriented programs and so on. He emphasized the need of identifying specific challenges in various domains and specific tasks for each domain/theme.

Discussion: Availability of data will be a big issue especially for themes which are exclusively dependent on data from government sources. We need to approach various departments for data.

Arijit Mandal (IIT Patna): We can identify mission/domain oriented projects and then solve.

Discussion: Prof. IM gave examples of Grand Challenge Scholar program of US where NSF has come forward to fund. We can request DST to do the same here.

Pritam Kumar (IIT Patna): Areas are too vast. Why not identify specific issues/problems?

Discussion: Prof. IM explained that our job is to come with policy document and not solve those problems.

Goutam Saha (IIT KGP): Framing some right questions will help. How to include others (outside these institutes) in discussion? There is a concern: we are acting as think tank. It is a big responsibility. Need to focus on many documents, best practices and so on. Collection and collation of data will be a big challenge. There will also be band-width related issues and support will be needed.

Discussion: Prof. P P Chakrabarti suggested that summer interns can be used for the purpose of collecting/collating data.

Arindam Biswas (IIT Roorkee): As we are concerned with policy document, huge diversity in India is a big issue. What will be the outcome of this exercise? We need to create policy document with landmark or milestones for assessment.

Discussion: Prof. IM: We have to come up with policies which will be applicable globally. We can target each theme to have a summary of 10 pages & comprehensive document of 50-100 pages.

Abhas Singh (IIT K): He posed some crucial questions as to what is lacking in Engineering Education now and how to keep the interest level of students intact after JEE.

Discussion: Prof. P P Chakrabarti: Make students more relevant to industry and not train them only for research

(b) Ask industry to fund projects for M Tech/PhD and depute a link person

Mukesh Sharma (IIT K): Policy must lead to societal benefits. Specific themes should be connected to societal problems and issues.

Purnendu Bose (IIT K): PhD research should be connected to topics listed in IMPRINT. We should identify areas where intense research in necessary.

Discussion: Prof. P P Chakrabarti (a) Develop alternative degree (to PhD/M. Tech. etc) – policy issue and (b) Engg. Doctorate only for industry

Sunando Dasgupta (IIT KGP): Each domain is too vast and we can’t address all issues. He emphasized we need to make each topic interesting to students and industry and follow an interdisciplinary approach.

Discussion: Prof. IM reiterated that our job is to come up with policies and not solving them.

Dipankar Saha (IITB): Financial support will be needed for the execution of project.

A K Gosain (IITD): Special teaching program needed for water as many complex issues are involved.

K Balasubramanian (IITB): We need to develop cheap instruments which can sell cheap and substitute foreign imports. India specific survey is needed to identify requirements.

A K Singh (IIT K): This is an opportunity for us to influence policy. We should not complain in future that the government does not consult us in policy making. Materials and ICT are connected to many domains and hence should have representation in various themes in order to come up with a consistent policy document.

Discussions: Solutions must be globally viable not just locally viable. We need to identify horizontals and verticals. Also, we need to come up with global solution to local problems.

Ravi S Nanjundiah (IISc, Bangalore): Environmental issues are huge and the report can be more than 10 pages. Reports can lead to more funding and projects for us. We must approach some concerned ministry for funding in future.

Discussion: Prof. IM: we can target 10-page summary for each theme and a 50-100 page comprehensive reports for each theme.

V Sreevatsan (IIT Indore): Collaboration with medical schools is necessary. CMC Vellore, for example.

S. Panda (IITK): Various ministries and government bodies have vision documents, ministry of petroleum and ICMR, for example. We need to consult them. Also, technologies and experts from outside will be needed for implementation of policies and funding requirements. There will be need to identify these.

Monica Katiyar (IITK): Materials encompass vast area and we need to connect to other IITs and various research groups.

Suman Chakrabaorty (IIT KGP): Education and research are interconnected. We need to create a template for policy document and report.

Kiran Kuchi (IIT Hyd): CS-ICT is interested to contribute to various domains. High quality competent manpower is needed by the government and we need to connect our MTech/PhDs with our needs.

Zafar Ali Khan (IIT Hyd): Telecom policy report covers many points and we should consult the same. Implementation policy is needed

Discussion – Short/long term goals need to be defined; Vision document needed B Singh Rajpurohit (IIT Mandi): A template for report writing is needed

Rajiv Sinha (IIT K): We should not ignore curriculum development. For example, sediment transport, which is important topic for us, is not covered in Civil Engg. Community based river management scheme needed. We need to develop and deploy sensors and connect them in a large network. Data management on ground water formation/occurrence is very poor and we may help.

Immediate Action Items (Next Steps)

• Prof. IM to report the outcome of this Workshop at IIT Kanpur on 11 May 2015 to the IIT Directors who would attend the GATE-NCB and JAM-AB meeting at IISc Bangalore on 16 May 2015. [Action completed]

• The slide presentation of Prof. IM will be shared with all the participants of the Workshop and Directors of IITs and IISc for a ready reference and moving forward. [Enclosed]

• Next meeting of IMPRINT will be held before mid-August, tentatively in Delhi.

• Theme leaders will identify big challenges, identify leaders for each topic, and form teams.

• Template of reports to define benchmarks, identify the ‘gaps’ and create a feasible roadmap will evolve in consultation with various groups

• A national level launch by the Honorable HRM is planned on Oct 16 2015 in New Delhi. It is expected a large number of foreign delegates from the International Council of Academies of Engineering and Technological Sciences (CAETS) may attend this meeting.

Appendix I

Participants from outside IIT Kanpur

Participants from IIT Kanpur