India is rapidly becoming an economic and political superpower. Its high growth and increasingly sophisticated economy is hungry for talented, highly skilled workers. The quantity of India’s young workforce is evident, and the Indian higher education system is evolving to ensure that the quality is also available.

Academic collaborations, as an instrument of cooperation, understood as the way of collaboration of similar entities to achieve the development and strengthening of their activities, is an increasingly frequent exercise among universities.

An international university partnership helps student recruitment in two main ways. For Indian students, it offers the opportunity to travel internationally via any exchange programs which may have been set up and vice versa for students at partnered universities. It also enables universities to better understand the culture of other nations, thereby facilitating their marketing success. Additionally, international collaboration programs help by providing students with the ability to study, work, and travel in an international capacity.

Plus, with the development of educational hubs, attracting international students from traditional regions of recruitment may become more difficult. To continue competing, universities should invest in cross-cultural university partnerships.

 A university aware of the globalization of knowledge and, therefore, integrated into large academic and scientific telemetric networks, that actively participates in the international and regional university world. The integration of all these networks of researchers and academics in a "network of networks" will lead to creating, as has already been pointed out, a true world university community.

Based on quality Higher Education, in an inclusive and equitable manner, university networks and associations play a fundamental role in strengthening Universities, since spaces for academic and institutional cooperation are organized and established as an instrument to carry out necessary changes in building a better future. Through the constitution of these networks, the Institutions can couple and share their scientific and cultural potential, and translate it into strategic solutions, to solve various problems that our society lives.

Institutional networks are made up of a group of academic institutions that, although of different origins and backgrounds, integrate or unite to undertake various purposes and carry out cooperation projects and specific exchanges. Its formation is an impulse to academic exchange and the establishment of joint projects, based on academic cooperation mechanisms in vital areas for educational development, such as: research; human resources training projects; continuing and distance education; the exchange of academics; promoting knowledge, information, methodology, ideas and innovative approaches; the mobility of students and teachers in broader frameworks of collaboration; the transfer of information; the academic recognition of titles, degrees and diplomas and, academic innovations among other relevant aspects.

Now most of the IIT’s are working with the foreign universities for internationally recognized research work and on the same line most of the private universities also collaborating with international universities. For example Medi-Caps University, Indore signed MoU with the Malaysian, African and other international universities for international work environment and betterment of students. The major advantages of the international collaborations are:

1. Strengthen the internationalization and connection of professors and graduates with the world.

2. Promote a meeting space between private regional universities, to generate synergies, which contribute to rise their strategic role in regional and local development.

3. Execute projects of mutual interest in training, research and social projection.

4. Manage national and international cooperation to obtain resources and promote collaborative technological, academic and research development projects.

5. Cooperate in the development of University Institutional Accreditation processes, nationally and internationally.

6. Share experiences and best practices in the academic, administrative and financial areas.

7. Promote the relationships of the Network with national and international universities and with other similar networks, worldwide.

8. Organize university extension activities that generate social impact in the region.

9. Promote the growth of the Network by linking other Higher Education institutions and institutions not necessarily attached to the educational sector, which share the same strategic objectives.

10. Strengthen the potential for innovation and knowledge transfer to the region

In this way, an alliance of institutions with these networks will allow, on the one hand, the development of synergies, which strengthen Universities and benefit society, in order to close gaps between those who do not have the support of the State and of private companies and, on the other, a strategic opportunity for the joint development of cooperation and solidarity projects and initiatives in the improvement of quality, the promotion of equity and the relevance and integration of Higher Education in the region.

It is pertinent to conclude by saying that all of us who work in the academic and educational field, especially in the university, it is clear that the best way to act is through networks. Our Institutional Educational Projects have strengths and weaknesses, but by joining the strengths we can overcome the weaknesses; therefore, we must work cooperatively, seeking together to build what, in isolation, none could achieve.

Dr. Ravindra Pathak