Vol. II: Shaping Information and Communication ... - IMA,ZLW & IfU

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Some experiences in interactions
The joint supervision of students by partners from different countries helped the postgraduate
students understand the dynamics of cross-cultural research environments. For example, a
PhD student of DTU, Lyngby (Denmark) was also guided by IpL Bologna, Italy. This enabled
him to understand the attributes of the cross-cultural environment and thereby be able to
integrate the cultural contexts into his study of the dairy enterprise system and the innovation
cluster approaches in both the countries.
The integration of exchange visits of senior and invited lecturers in the postgraduate training
model helped fostering the creation of inter-institutional research collaborations, within and
across Indian and European institutions
The in-built mechanism of interaction and exchange in the model also facilitated collaboration
between individual researchers within and across the regions. The model created links
between young researchers and senior network researchers through specialist lectures,
seminars, and open forums, and this led to the exchange of knowledge and experiences of
research. This exchange also helped the young researchers to build networking collaborations
with other young researchers both within and outside the project network. One important
outcome of this collaboration is the existence of these two Volumes which describe and
record the wide-spread experiences and observations of about all actors of the Eu-India Cross-
Cultural Network.
4.5 A Framework for Multidisciplinary Research and Teaching
Based on these network collaborations at the institutional and individual levels, new
multidisciplinary courses were developed for the first time in the Indian university patterns.
For example the postgraduate IT course at PAU is oriented towards the Agriculture sector in
Punjab. The multimedia training tool development at NISTADS is directed at the artisanal
enterprise sector. The ICT Masters course development at Delhi University integrates in its
design and operational mechanism an innovation of “learning while learning” model.
As a few examples, the following courses have been developed in this project: ICT courses
offered to graduate and postgraduate students at Delhi University (Institute of Informatics and
Communication in ICT): a new postgraduate IT course at the Punjab Agricultural University
(Agriculture Engineering): an IT training course for extension workers at PAU (Extension