Indian universities must focus on building leadership

S Vishnu Sharmaa, INN/Chennai, @Svs037

Indian universities need to focus on building leadership and imagination with a stronger focus on sustainable futures, said Professor Dr C. Raj Kumar, founding vice chancellor of O.P.Jindal Global University (JGU). 

He said this at World Economic Forum (WEF) 2020 in Davos recently. Raj Kumar is said to be the only vice chancellor from India invited to speak at Davos this year. 

The theme for the forum this year was ‘Stakeholders for a Cohesive and Sustainable World.’ Raj Kumar further said the sustainability framework should permeate all aspects of institution building among the Universities of the world. 

Indian Universities can play a global catalytic role for promoting sustainable futures given the significant demographic situation that prevails in India. 

This is further underlined by the fact that more than 850 million in India are less than 35 years of age and India’s life expectancy has increased to 71 years, he said. 

Speaking at Times Higher Education Exclusive Breakfast debate on ‘What is the power of place?’ held as a part of WEF 2020 Raj Kumar said the identity of the 21st century university as the foundational base for fostering cosmopolitan and global world visions is both an imperative necessity and at the same time an increasingly difficult ideal in our age. 

A key question is how university leaders can negotiate within these ambiguous, complex and volatile contexts to preserve the core purposes of the university to provide safe havens for innovation, dissent and cosmopolitan worldviews, he said. 

JGU is said to be signing a Memorandum-of-Understanding with University of Zurich (UZH) at the forum. The MoU is for fostering mutual cooperation in higher education and research. Vice chancellors of Australian National University (Australia), McGill University (Canada), Imperial COllege London (UK) were among those also invited to take part in WEF 2020.