A UK University with key links to the Punjab district has announced a new strategic partnership to build on its connection with the Indian state.
Birmingham City University (UK) has formed a special agreement with RMIT University (Australia), which will aim to drive forward new ideas and innovation using the principles of STEAM, which embeds the arts into traditional scientific subjects.
Birmingham City University has an existing partnership with Indian motorbike and cycle manufacturing giants Hero Group, which created the Munjal BCU School of Innovation and Entrepreneurship (MBSI), STEAMhouse India.
The MBSI aims to drive innovation in the state’s industrial clusters and promote entrepreneurship, and tap into the state’s reservoirs of manpower, as well as boost the potential of knowledge-intensive businesses.
RMIT University also boasts key links across India and South Asia and hopes to use the new collaboration to extend the impact of this work.
Both institutions will used the new partnership to further their work in India with a key focus on enhancing entrepreneurship, the creation of start-ups and innovative interdisciplinary partnerships.
As part of the new agreement, the partnership will establish a ‘Commonwealth STEAM Challenge’, to coincide with the 2022 Commonwealth Games. The Challenge will task people with using STEAM thinking to explore how design can play an integral part in enhancing sport at all levels, and boosting the positive social and public health benefits associated with sport and exercise.
This will form part of a wider ‘International STEAM Challenge’, focused on critical environmental and social challenges facing the world and bringing together students, faculty and commercial partners in the UK, Spain, India, Vietnam and Australia.
Professor Julian Beer, Deputy Vice-Chancellor at Birmingham City University, said: “Birmingham City University is delighted to be establishing this formal relationship with a truly international university such as RMIT.
“As Higher Education responds to a post-Covid world and the challenges of climate change, the coming together of BCU with RMIT, a global university, signals a fresh and ambitious approach to teaching, learning and applied research that’s fit for the future.”
