MUMBAI: Canada has announced a new package of education and research measures with India that includes scholarship funding for Indian students and the creation of “hybrid” study and research presences in India tied to Canadian institutions. The initiatives were presented alongside Canadian and Indian officials and higher-education leaders under a Canada-India Talent and Innovation Strategy aimed at expanding student mobility, faculty exchanges and research collaboration.
The Canadian Prime Minister’s Office said the measures include up to C$25 million from the University of Toronto to support more than 220 scholarships for Indian students studying in Canada, along with 300 funded Indian student researcher positions. The government also cited an additional C$10 million in Indo-Pacific scholarships and fellowships to support more than 85 Canadian graduate students and researchers studying in and collaborating with Indian counterparts.
Universities Canada and Colleges and Institutes Canada said the strategy is being developed with participation from more than 20 Canadian institutions and is built around research partnerships, talent mobility and skills cooperation. The initiative was announced alongside 13 new partnerships between Canadian and Indian universities, including work in areas such as artificial intelligence, clean energy, health innovation and advanced manufacturing, according to the organizations and Canadian government statements.
Scholarships And Hybrid Footprints
Canadian government statements said the education package also includes the establishment of Canadian-linked centres and campuses in India, described by several institutions as “hybrid” models that combine local programming and collaboration with pathways tied to Canadian study and research. The Prime Minister’s Office cited a Dalhousie University-led innovation campus partnership with the Indian Institute of Technology Tirupati and the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research Tirupati, and new University of Toronto and McGill University centres of excellence in India.
The University of Toronto said it is developing a centre of excellence with the Indian Institute of Science focused on using artificial intelligence to build predictive health-care systems. The university also said it has provided significant merit-based scholarship support to undergraduate students from India in recent years and described a new admissions-cycle offering of additional scholarships, while the Prime Minister’s Office emphasized the new C$25 million scholarship funding and the researcher positions as part of the broader Canada-India education collaboration.
Skills Training And Institutional Partnerships
Colleges and Institutes Canada said its pillar of the strategy will focus on skills cooperation and workforce training, including work with India’s Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship to develop a roadmap for national centres of excellence in sectors such as artificial intelligence, critical minerals and agri-tech. It said the centres are intended to support industry-aligned training models, technology-enabled and blended learning, and collaboration on curriculum and instructor development.
Canadian and Indian officials framed the overall effort as a move to deepen people-to-people ties through structured academic and skills partnerships, while institutions highlighted a growing set of formal agreements linking universities and colleges across the two countries. The Prime Minister’s Office said the broader Canada-India announcements also included cooperation between the Canadian Space Agency and the Indian Space Research Organisation on Earth observation, alongside other bilateral initiatives released during the same series of meetings. – By Content Syndication Services.