The Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand, and the Indian Institute of Management, Kozhikode (IIM-K) on Wednesday signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for scientific and educational cooperation.

The MoU was signed by Professor, Neil Quigley, Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research) and Pro-Vice-Chancellor (International), Victoria University, and Krishna Kumar, Director, IIM-K. The two universities have agreed to promote exchange of academic staff, PhD and post-graduate students and academic information and materials under the agreement. Also the MoU underlines the need to undertake joint research and participation in conferences and academic meetings.

Professor Quigley said the New Zealand Government’s decision to introduce new fee regime for international doctoral students from January 1, 2006, had opened the doors of opportunities for Indian students seeking admissions at Victoria University.

According to the new policy, international PhD students are charged domestic fee of $3,800 a year.

Moreover, the spouse of PhD students would get an open work permit. Pre-school, primary or secondary school education is free for children of PhD students. Also, PhD students can work up to 20 hours per week, Prof. Quigley said.

“India is an emerging market for Victoria and this agreement is part of our internationalisation strategy of seeking high quality teaching and research partners in the Asia-Pacific region,” Prof. Quigley said.

Dr .Krishna Kumar in his presidential address said that unlike other MoUs where student exchange programmes were highlighted first, this MoU has mentioned in its first paragraph itself about the faculty exchange programmes. He said faster the changes in the field, the greater is the need for research. IIMs have a lesser number of faculty members compared to IITs. Hence the IIM-K was trying to become catalysts of research programmes. A documentation centre having documents related to European and ASEAN countries alone will be started soon at the IIM-K library. The Institute is thinking of offering post-doctoral facilities, including its state-of-the-art library facilities.

K. Unnikrishnan Nair, faculty member, IIM-K said doctoral programmes may be started soon in IIM-K. P. Rameshan, faculty member, IIM-K and Arun Abraham, faculty, Victoria University, also spoke.