Karnataka invites UK varsity to set up campus in Bengaluru

Bengaluru: Karnataka Minister of Higher Education C N Ashwath Narayan on Friday invited United Kingdom’s Edinburgh University to open its campus here.

The Minister, during his visit to the 450-year-old university located in Scotland, held discussions with the top officials of the varsity and put forth this offer, the Minister’s office said in a statement.

Edinburgh University officials responded positively to the proposal, the statement said and added that Narayan invited them to attend the silver jubilee celebration of the Bengaluru Tech Summit (BTS-22) scheduled for November.

”The National Education Policy (NEP 2020) which is being implemented in Karnataka paves way for the internationalisation of education. In addition, Edinburgh University is renowned for multi-disciplinary education which is also the core of NEP. These factors favour Edinburgh University to set up its campus in Bengaluru,” he said.

Also, the Minister held consultations pertaining to collaborations in higher education besides deliberating on the introduction of ‘Twinning Courses’.

He visited the Bayes Centre, which is an incubation and a unique model of a multi-disciplinary education centre on the Edinburgh University campus, and also witnessed the robotic lab, data science, and AI centres housed there.

The Minister discussed also the possibilities of achieving collaboration with VTU Belagavi in the areas of AI, mechatronics, and cyber security, which may be explored.