Contours of India-EU Engagements

Neeta Inamdar is a Research Professor at the Symbiosis Centre for Higher Education Research and Policy Advocacy (SCHERPA), and the Dean of the Faculty of Education at Symbiosis International (Deemed University). She worked earlier as Professor and Head of the Manipal Centre for European Studies (MCES), Manipal Academy of Higher Education (MAHE), Manipal. She is also a recipient of Fellowship from India Higher Education Research Network (IHERN) for 2024-26.

Prof Inamdar was instrumental in establishing MCES in 2009 and since then led it through the years to make it a Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence that offers master's programs in European Studies. Though interested in various aspects of the European economy, society, and culture, she was more drawn to education in Europe - both school and higher education as reflected in the projects she led in Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL), the Bologna Process, and the Internationalization of Higher Education. She was instrumental in the formation of the Association of European Studies in India (AESI) and was the Founding Secretary of AESI.

She believes in people-to-people connections as a means for peaceful coexistence and focuses on research in educational connections between India and Europe. She has been a recipient of the Jean Monnet module (2014-2017) and Jean Monnet Chair (2017-2020). She has earlier co-edited books on Internationalization of Higher Education: The Dynamics of Educational Ecology and Reimagining Border in Cross-border Education. She is actively involved in Erasmus programmes and has visited several universities in Europe on teaching and research assignments.

Praveen Shetty is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Humanities and Management, Manipal Institute of Technology (MIT), Manipal. His research area is Intercultural Communications, with a focus on multiculturalism and diversity. He teaches communication skills in English and Intercultural Studies at MIT, Manipal. He also teaches select modules at MCES on topics related to European identity, theories of literature and culture. He is a recipient of the Jean Monnet Module tilted Building Bridges: Indo-European Intercultural Dynamics and is the Coordinator of the Centre for Intercultural Studies and Dialogue, MAHE, Manipal. The Centre is engaged in activities related to intercultural studies that include summer and winter schools, academic modules in the field, and workshops on intercultural communication.

Priya Vijaykumar Poojary is a Lecturer at Manipal Centre for European Studies (MCES), MAHE. She holds a Master's degree in European Studies from MAHE, Manipal and a second Master's in International Relations from Metropolitan University Prague (MUP). Her teaching and research interests include European politics, policy-making in the European Union, the EU's foreign policy, India-EU relations, EU-Asia relations, and Higher Education Regionalism. She is currently pursuing her doctoral studies titled The Dynamics of Higher Education Regionalism in Europe and Asia. She has been a visiting fellow at Bremen International Graduate School of Social Sciences (BIGSSS) and a beneficiary of Erasmus+ teaching mobilities at various European universities. Ms Poojary has worked as a Schuman Trainee at the Directorate-General for the External Policies of the Union-Unit for Asia, Australia and New Zealand (AANZ), European Parliament, from October 2022 to February 2023. She is also the Coordinator of the Centre for Education Research (CER) at MAHE, Manipal.