Agri Varsity to go global

UAS, B'lore proposes campuses in Nepal, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka

To start with UAS, Bangalore, proposes to establish campuses in Nepal, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka in disciplines where the university has strength and skills. The proposal has been cleared by the State Government and academic bodies of UAS. Relevant statutory provisions have also been made to enable establishing campuses abroad.

“The university has been a  preferred academic destination for students in agricultural sciences for several countries of South Asia, the Middle East and Africa. We now propose to reach out to these countries by having off-shore teaching campuses”, UAS officials told Deccan Herald.

The university plans to offer watershed management, environmental economics and natural resource management, innovative plant breeding and molecular markers breeding besides medical and aromatic plant utilisation as the niche areas of study at its off-shore campuses. UAS already has close tie-ups with Tribuvan University of Nepal and Paradeniya University of Sri Lanka. As a first step, university officials made presentation on its proposal at the recently concluded Global Investors Meet -2010.  “The response was good. We also propose to write to various universities abroad. We are confident that a few joint ventures will materialise soon”, the officials said.

Intl institute

Another ambitious programme of UAS is to establish International Institute of Advanced Studies in Agriculture (IIASA) for higher learning and cutting edge research.

It  proposes to spend Rs 200 crore at its GKVK campus through joint ventures with global universities and institutes. The varsity is still working out the modalities in this regard. UAS has identified 10 academic masters programmes on contemporary themes to be offered at IIASA. The areas include MBA in international agri-business and policy, MTech programmes in electronics in agriculture and agro-processing for exports, besides seven masters degree programmes in climate change studies, environmental economics, management and policy, bioinformatics and genomics in agricultural biotechnology, apomixis and hybrid development, medicinal and aromatic crops, body care and cosmeceuticals and health and nutraceuticals.

There would be an option to develop some of these areas into doctoral programmes.