Guwahati, Jul 27 (IANS): The Indian Institute of Technology, Guwahati has been implementing special initiatives to attract more foreign students, officials said on Wednesday.

The IIT currently has 29 foreign students from nine countries - the UK, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh, Syria, Ethiopia, Sudan, Cameroon, and Seychelles and it is currently part of six foreign exchange programmes with five institutes of four countries - China, Germany, Japan and Australia.

Officials of the premier engineering institute said that it has been ranked at 384 by the QS World University Rankings 2023 and it has also gained rank 37 globally in the 'Research Citations per Faculty'.

A Joint Degree PhD Programme (JDP) for a student who gets PhD from IIT and a partner institute abroad and spends at least 12 months at each institute during the programme has also been initiated and more such JDPs are likely to be offered in the near future. The institute is also actively inviting foreign students for admission in courses across all disciplines of engineering, sciences, humanities and social sciences, design, healthcare and medicine, management and inter-disciplinary areas, an official statement said.

Highlighting IIT Guwahati's vision to become a global educational Institute of excellence, its Director, Prof. T.G. Sitharam, said, "With rapid internationalisation of the education sector, IIT Guwahati shall gain a strong foothold, across higher education institutes, worldwide and can play an active role in mitigating challenges associated with global issues."

Dean, Alumni and External Relations, Prof. Mihir Kumar Purkait, said: "To excel as a global leader, IITG must attract the best and brightest brains from around the world, retain home-grown talent within the limits of our country. It is a challenging job but we are hopeful that with small steps we will march ahead in becoming a destination for international students."