Global Initiative of Academic Networks (GIAN)

What’s in Today’s Article?

• Why in the News?
• About Global Initiative of Academic Networks (GIAN)
• Salient Features of GIAN
• Significance of GIAN Programme

Why in the News?

• Eight years after its inception, the Ministry of Education is gearing up to restart the fourth phase of the Global Initiative of Academic Networks (GIAN).

About Global Initiative of Academic Networks (GIAN)

• Global Initiative of Academic Networks (GIAN) in Higher Education was launched in 2015. It is a program of Ministry of Education.
• Aim: Tapping the talent pool of scientists and entrepreneurs internationally to encourage their engagement with the institutes of Higher Education in India.
  • This will help augment India’s existing academic resources, accelerate the pace of quality reform, and elevate India's scientific and technological capacity to global excellence.
• Objectives:
  • To improve the quality of higher education through international collaboration.
  • To increase the touch of reputed international faculty to Indian academic institutes.
  • To bring in International academic excellence in India's higher education institutions.
  • 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.
• Nodal Agency: IIT Kharagpur

Salient Features of GIAN

• An honorarium is paid to the foreign experts to cover their travels and other expenses.
• Short term courses are conducted by these experts/faculties in Indian Institutions.
• This programme was first launched to establish collaboration between India and The United States of America, but later, the scope of the programme was extended.
• The duration of courses differ for different courses. The minimum duration is one week and the maximum duration is 3 weeks.
• A lump-sum amount of up to US$ 8000 (~ ₹7 lakh) for 12 to 14 hours of contact and up to US$ 12000 (~ ₹12 lakh) for 20 to 28 hours of contact can be paid to the foreign experts covering their travel and honorarium.

Significance of GIAN Programme

• The Central government has spent at least ₹126 crore in payment to support foreign faculty’s travel and honorarium since the inception of GIAN.
• Since the beginning of the scheme in 2015-16, 1,612 foreign faculty members have visited the country to deliver courses from 59 countries.
• As many as 692 (39%) of 1,772 courses were delivered in Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) campuses, while the second largest cohort of lectures, 436 (24.6%), took place in the National Institute of Technology (NITs).
• Up to 41.4% (668) of academicians who visited India belonged to the U.S. The rest consisted of experts from the U.K. (143), Germany (93), Canada (89), etc. Up to 72,000 Indian students directly benefitted.

Q1) What is the Institute of Excellence?

Institute of Excellence was launched in order to empower the Higher Educational Institutions and to help them become world-class teaching and research institutions.

Q2) Who built IISc Bengaluru?

The Indian Institute of Science was founded in 1909 as a result of the joint efforts of Jamsetji Nussarwanji Tata, the Government of India and the Maharaja of Mysore.

Source: After COVID break, Centre approves fourth phase roll-out of GIAN scheme | IITKgp