Coimbatore: The Tamil Nadu Agricultural University (TNAU) is aggressively trying to collaborate with more foreign institutions on research and student exchange programmes to improve its global ranking.TNAU is ranked 28th among all academic institutions by the National Institutional Ranking Framework, while it is yet to make it to the top 50 in any global ranking system.“We have tie ups with many institutes across the world, including Ivy league institutions like Cornell University in UK,” said T Raguchander, international student collaboration incharge. “Hence, we are in a position to send two to three students to the US for study, research or fellowships every year.”However, the bigger focus is on getting more international students to visit TNAU and pursue either research studies or fellowships. “The number of international students visiting TNAU has increased from two or three before 2013 to almost 16 to 17 a year in the past couple of years,” Raguchander said. “The students mainly come from Asian and African countries like Bhutan, Afghanistan, Rwanda, Nepal among others. We have had a few students visiting from Canada too.”TNAU now has a student, Hannah Arseneault, from Dalhousie University’s Agricultural campus in Nova Scotia to study nematode identification techniques. “The plant pathologist in my university, Dr Prithviraj, suggested I train in TNAU on identification of nematodes, their types and ways to manage it. It has been a valuable experience learning about plant parasitic nematodes, ways to collect soil samples, collect roots to check for infestation, among others,” Arseneault said.However, the number of students from Western countries is low. “That is mainly because their cropping pattern is different, and they have more temperate region crops compared to our tropical climate,” said Prabhakaran, director, plant protection studies. “However, they still come to our university for our expertise in nanotechnology, nematology, biotechnology and agronomy.”While TNAU is equipping their international students hostel with refurbished air-conditioned rooms and other facilities, they are working on constantly updating their webpage to make it more visitor-friendly and attractive to students from abroad. “We get at least 20 to 25 applications for proper degrees and certificate courses,” Raguchander said. “At least 10 of them could be considered for acceptance.”Recently, TNAU vice-chancellor N Kumar had requested the faculty to support their alumni and network with them to promote the university globally.

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