Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) has signed a MoU with Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) for institutional collaboration in education and research.

The main objectives of the MoU are to promote and enhance the interaction and collaboration between faculty, staff and students of JNU with ICMR institutions through visits and exchange programmes, joint academic and research programmes. MoU is aimed at enhancing the technological collaboration in the areas of national interest.

The cooperation will focus on faculty and student exchange programmes, increasing the opportunities for interaction among members of faculty and students between Schools/Centres of JNU and ICMR institutions as well as creating Visiting/Adjunct Faculty positions and short visits.

Prof. M. Jagadesh Kumar, VC, JNU, emphasized on priorities to undertake joint research projects in the areas of Bioinformatics, Genomics, Medical Informatics, Health economics, Chemoinformatics, Drug Discovery, Science Policy, Social Medicine and Community Health, Application of Machine Learning and other advance data analytics in medical research, Data Analytics Capacity, Image Analytics, developing and evaluating medical devices and technologies and other areas of mutual interest. He also said that establishing of the Joint Research Centre will be explored for the long term collaborations.

He emphasized that both institutes will initiate a joint mentorship PhD program where mentors from both the institutions will guide the students to work on health-related problems originating from ICMR after due approval of both, the JNU and ICMR. To promote joint academic activities such as short-term courses, seminars, workshops and conferences based on mutual interests and available expertise in both the institutions will be formulated.

Intellectual property developed under this MoU shall be shared jointly by JNU and ICMR.

The activities envisaged under the MoU will be guided and monitored by ICMR-JNU joint Steering Committee headed by Prof. (Dr.) Balram Bhargava, DG, ICMR and Secretary, DHR, and Prof. M. Jagadesh Kumar, Vice-Chancellor, JNU.