According to official sources on March 12, the University of British Columbia (UBC), Canada’s leading research university, has signed four statements of cooperation involving the Indian Institute of Technology Madras, Tata Consultancy Service Limited (TCS), Mitacs and T-Hub Foundation to collaborate on a wide range of academic and research activities and initiatives. All the four agreements were signed during the visit of Professor Santa Ono, president and vice-chancellor of UBC.
The collaboration with UBC and Indian Institute of Technology, Madras will focus on courses offered by the University of British Columbia in the area of urban resilience. Projects will be in the areas of economic development, bio-diversity, alternative water sources, community resilience against climate change – specifically, climate adaptation at the neighbourhood scale, forest wild-fire exposure, and earthquake resilience expertise development.  Students will work with global virtual and local community teams to address resilience challenges of cities in the 100 Resilient Cities [100RC] network with exchange of scholarly information and research with participation from students, faculty and staff in this project.

The alliance between UBC and Tata Consultancy Service Limited (TCS) emphasises on collaborative research activities in the areas of urban resilience, smart cities, material genomics and personalised medicine.  The collaboration will include joint conferences, seminars, workshops and other academic interaction meetings along with exchange of visiting scholars, researchers and students for research through inbound and outbound sabbaticals or internships.

The partnership between UBC and Mitacs focuses on institutional collaborations that can contribute to advancing energy research to meet the needs of society in both Canada and India. The alliance also provides opportunities for Masters and PhD students to gain international research experience involving students from UBC and partner institutions in India.

The MoU between UBC and T-Hub Foundation focuses on the area of entrepreneurship training, support and international partnership. The partnership will support aspiring student entrepreneurs from both countries – India and Canada – in solving problems of global relevance and importance through co-creation of a market access bridge allowing growth stage start-ups and scale ups from both countries to enter Indian and Canadian market successfully as part of their global expansion.

Speaking on the occasion, Prof. Santa Ono, president and vice-chancellor of University of British Columbia (UBC) said, “We are extremely happy to sign four agreements with prestigious Indian institutions and organisations. These collaborations will be landmark projects and will take research to a different level. Our immediate goal is to establish research links and encourage student exchange between India and Canada drawing talent and building synergies between the two countries”.

“All the agreements underscore UBC’s commitment and continued focus on developing meaningful partnerships with the Indian institutions,” he added.

Promoted in 1915, the University of British Columbia is one of North America’s leading universities consistently ranked in the top 40 universities worldwide.