Erasmus+ Global Mobility Project with India and Pakistan- I

Department of Chemical Engineering (IKP) at NTNU has successfully finished an Erasmus+ Global Mobility project with the Department of Chemical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IIT-M), India; the School of Chemical & Materials Engineering (SCME), National University of Science and Technology (NUST), Pakistan, and the Institute of Chemical Engineering & Technology, University of the Punjab, Pakistan. The project supported teaching and research stays for students, PhDs and staff members for both short term as well as long term mobilities. 

Since the project started in 2020, the year of the start of the coronavirus pandemic, mobility was severely affected. Our first research mobility started in August 2021.  However, due to very good support from the partner universities, we had several mobilities:  

7 MSc mobilities (ranging from 6 months to 1 year) from NUST to NTNU 

7 PhD mobilities (ranging from 5 months to 1 year) from IIT-M to NTNU 

1 PhD mobility (1 year) from PU to NTNU 

1 BSc mobility each from NTNU to NUST and IIT-M (2 months each)  

Staff mobility ranged from 7 days to 2 months. 

4 staff mobilities from NUST and PU to NTNU  

1 staff mobility from IIT-M to NTNU 

3 staff mobilities from NTNU to NUST  

2 staff mobilities from NTNU to IIT-M.  

NTNU, in collaboration with the partners, organized a 5-day summer school on Sustainable and Circular Chemical Engineering in Trondheim. A total of 25 participants attended the summer school. Upon successful completion and submission of a detailed report, a 3.5 ECTS credit was awarded along with completion certificates to the eligible participants. 

The research mobilities have led to several joint publications: Journal articles (submitted or published): 7, Conference presentations/posters – 15, besides giving exposure to state-of-the-art experimental infrastructure. The mobilities helped in strengthening the research collaboration between the partner universities through co-supervision of three PhD candidates and co-supervision of 7 MSc students.  

The staff visits were connected to the evaluation of respective study programmes to venture into new collaborations in both research and teaching, understanding the education system in aspects of credits, contact hours, and approval of courses, mutual sharing of undergraduate and postgraduate curricula, suitability of courses for exchange students, and discussions on the possibilities of joint course development, intensive courses, and summer schools. 

Co-operation developed through the project helped in the organization of the International Conference on Sustainable and Applied Nanotechnology for Agriculture and Health (SANTAH) at IIT-M, from 19th to 21st July 2023. The conference saw a total of 150 participants.