IIT-Kgp plans fin aid for students in bid to boost global internships
Times of India | 10 March 2026
Kolkata: In a bid to enhance its global footprint, IIT Kharagpur will, for the first time, provide financial and institutional support to at least 100 BTech, five-year dual degree and MTech students so they can take up international internships and study abroad under the semester away programme. The institute, celebrating its platinum jubilee, will begin the initiative from this summer. The institute will also launch enhanced financial support schemes for PhD and postdoctoral scholars to enable long-term research stays at top labs, beyond attending international conferences.
As part of the ongoing efforts, the tech school also aims at increasing its international students, research scholars and postdoctoral researchers on campus by providing them with different international fellowships. It will also launch an international co-teaching scheme, bringing leading academics, industry experts and researchers as co-instructors in the UG and PG curriculum of the institute.
"The world's most consequential problems will not be solved in silos or within borders. Through these platinum jubilee initiatives, IIT Kharagpur is positioning itself as a global convergence point, where the brightest minds come together to co-create solutions that matter to humanity. This is internationalisation with purpose, scale, and ambition, befitting India's first IIT in its milestone year," said director Suman Chakraborty.
Dean of international relations Anandaroop Bhattacharya said there is a curriculum-mandated internship for BTech, dual-degree and MTech students, but often students decline opportunities for international internships because they cannot afford them. "Similarly, it can be cost prohibitive for most of our students to go and stay a semester in Europe, the USA, Australia or Singapore without financial aid," he said, adding they are now accepting applications and the response has been overwhelming. "The students will be thoroughly screened," Bhattacharya said.
IIT Kharagpur currently has more than 60 foreign students, and plans to increase the intake by at least two-three times in the next two years.
"We are creating merit-based fellowships to position the institute as a destination of choice for outstanding global scholars. The Global Challenge Scheme and International Summer Research Programme will enable fully funded, long-duration research stays for top international students and researchers so that they can work with IIT-Kharagpur teams on problems of global significance," Chakraborty said.
According to him, a Platinum Jubilee Bilateral Research Initiation Scheme is also being introduced to provide Rs 50 lakh seed funding per project for jointly conceived research with premier global partners, with mandatory co-investment from the partner institute, and a targeted 10-fold multiplier in externally funded outcomes, alongside joint supervision, publications, and two-way faculty and student mobility.