Govt. of India approved a new program titled Global Initiative of Academic Networks (GIAN) in Higher Education aimed at tapping the talent pool of scientists and entrepreneurs, internationally to encourage their engagement with the institutes of Higher Education in India so as to augment the country’s existing academic resources, accelerate the pace of quality reform, and elevate India’s scientific and technological capacity to global excellence.
In order to garner the best international experience into our systems of education, enable intersection of students and faculty with the best academic and industry experts from all over the world and also share their experiences and expertise to motivate people to work on Indian problems, there is a need for a Scheme of International Summer and Winter Term. During the ‘Retreat’ of IITs with Minister of Human Resource Development Smt. Smriti Zubin Irani on June 29, 2014 at Goa, it was decided that “A system of Guest Lectures by internationally and nationally renowned experts would be evolved along with a comprehensive Faculty Developed Programme not only for new IITs, IIMs, IISERs but also other institutions in the country.
GIAN is envisaged to catalyse higher education institutions in the country and that it will initially include all IITs, IIMs, Central Universities, IISc. Bangalore, IISERs, NITs and IIITs subsequently cover good State Universities where the spinoff is vast. GIAN is an evolving scheme which will initially include participating of foreign faculty in Institutes as Distinguished / Adjunct / Visiting faculty / Professors of Practice, etc. to participate in delivering Short or Semester-long Courses. Other activities will be included in due course.