New Delhi: Delhi University (DU) has joined the Erasmus Mundus External Cooperation Window Lot 15 (EMECW15), designed to fund higher education, student and teaching staff mobility activities between 12 European universities and 8 Indian universities.

The objective of the consortium is to create a partnership for research and development to strengthen ties between India and the European Union (EU).

It also aims at strengthening cooperation between India and Europe at the academic level, and eventually in areas such as trade, politics and international organizations.

Topics that will be included in the education and research collaboration are agriculture, food processing, climate change, energy, environment, information and communication technology (ICT), biotechnology, and nanotechnology, all reflecting the regional needs of India.

DU is the only partner varsity from Delhi in the consortium. Other partner institutions include Jadavpur University (Kolkata), University of Pune, University of Kerala, Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur (IIT-K), Tata Institute of Social Sciences (Mumbai), Pravara Institute of Medical Sciences (Maharashtra) and Anand Agricultural University (Gujarat).

Under the scheme, a total of 301 scholarships (94 for Undergraduate students, 107 for Masters students, 80 for PhD students, 41 for Post Doctoral fellows and 80 for academic staff) will be offered to Indian students.

Students from DU will be able to pursue their higher education at any one of the selected European varsities. Students will be given all the financial support during their period of study.

The contract between the Indian institutions and European universities will be valid up to April 2012.

DU Vice-Chancellor Prof. Deepak Pental said, "Though we have collaborated with institutions abroad, the University Grants Commission (UGC) or the Ministry of Human Resource Development does not provide any grant to ensure successful mobility or exchange of students between two countries. With the European Commission investing 10 million euros, this programme will be easier to implement".

The EMECW15 scheme is part of the EMECW, a project funded by the European Union (EU) to increase cooperation and exchange between Europe and other parts of the world.

The coordinating institution for the EMECW15 scheme is the University of Lund (Sweden).

The 12 partner European institutions include:

- Lund University (coordinator)

- Karolinska Institutet Medical University (Sweden)

- Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (Belgium)

- Pierre & Marie Curie University (UPMC), France

- Freie Universität Berlin (FU), Germany

- Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg (FU), Germany

- Politecnico di Milano, Italy

- University of Vilnius (UV), Lithuania

- University of Amsterdam (UvA), Netherlands

- International Institute for Geo-Information Science and Earth Observation (ITC), Enschede, Netherlands

- Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), Trondheim, Norway

- University of Deusto (UD), Bilbao, Spain