LATEST UPDATE: The UK Prime Minister David Cameron and Indian Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh announced the extension of the successful UK India Education and Research Initiative (UKIERI), which has created almost 600 new partnerships between UK and Indian institutions at all levels of the education system.  The new programme will be funded by both Governments and will run for a further five years, from 2011 to 2015. The expanded programme is likely to have strands of collaboration on higher education, skills, leadership and quality in education, and will work to build on the existing UKIERI programmes which have helped bring more students from the UK to India.

UK India Education and Research Initiative ( UKIERI ) is a five year programme which aims to substantially improve educational links between India and the UK so that in the long term we become each other's partner of choice in education. It has been recognised as the programme that is playing an important role in fostering contacts across the UK and India in the field of Higher Education.

UKIERI has successfully completed three rounds of funding to institutions under its strands. The three main strands of the initiative are – Higher Education and Research, Schools and Professional and Technical Skills. The Initiative also presented an opportunity for high level dialogue between the two countries on areas of mutual policy interest such as quality assurance, international standards and credit recognition schemes.

To date, it has committed over £20 million to support hundreds of bilateral partnerships between India and the UK . In recognition of the success of the UKIERI programme an additional £3 million has been allocated by the UK Government to UKIERI . The additional funds are being utilised to fund an additional round of higher education research awards and to launch two new programmes i.e. Study India Programme for UK undergraduates and India Graduate Work Experience Programme for Indian graduates.

The private sector has added significantly to this contribution through the 3 corporate champions - BAE Systems , GlaxoSmithKline and Shell. Along with these three global organisations, BP extended support to UKIERI as a Corporate Champion for three years, from 2006-2009 and continues to be actively engaged with the schools strand . KPMG too was associated with UKIERI as the keystone partner for Financial Services Skills Exchange, from 2006-2009 , on the Professional & Technical Skills strand .

Working with corporate partners has been a key focus in UKIERI and these partnerships have enhanced the scale, impact , sustainability and reach of the programme

All funding opportunities under UKIERI are now closed and there will be no further opportunities for new awards between now and 2011 . The programme has been a resounding success either reaching or exceeding its targets set in the early days of 2006. UKIERI projects run for a number of years and so at this point in the life of the programme all financial commitments have now been made. This means that there will be no further opportunities for new awards between now and 2011.

The programme has achieved its targets set in the early days of 2006. Please click here to view the key achievements.

IMPORTANT: Please note that there is a considerable increase of India visitors to UK at this time of year and it will lead to a stretched UK visa turn around time of minimum one month. It is advised therefore that all UKIERI visa applicants apply well in time.Please note that British Council will only provide a letter of support to all applicants travelling under the programme. No further visa assistance is facilitated. For all details on visas, please visit UKBA website www.ukba.homeoffice.gov.uk