Heritage Network - History

The HERITAGE NETWORK as it exists today is the result of several years of partnerships, meetings and projects between 30 top Indian and European Higher Education Institutions.

2009 – 2013: Centrale Nantes is granted the coordination of the first Erasmus Mundus Partnership project: WILLPOWER.

The WILLPOWER Programme objective was to create partnerships at the academic level to strengthen ties between India and Europe. It also aimed at strengthening research and development cooperation, and relationships in areas such as trade, politics and international organizations.

2012 – 2016: The European Union accepts the Erasmus Mundus Action 2 HERITAGE project.

18 Indo-European Institutions worked together to enable 144 Indian undergraduate, graduate, PhD and Post-Doc students as well as staff to participate in an international experience at the European Heritage partner institutions for short/long time mobilities.

May 2016 (9th – 10th): Final meeting (IIT Guwahati, India) of the HERITAGE project.

The key topics addressed were internationalization, recognition of studies, quality and sustainability. Creation of the HERITAGE NETWORK.

May 2017 (5th – 6th): 1st GA of the HERITAGE NETWORK, hosted by Centrale Nantes (France)

Election of the SEC members.

February 2018 (5th – 6th): 2nd GA of the HERITAGE NETWORK, hosted by Indian Institute of Technology Madras (India)

Launch of the Heritage Network Workshop series with a first Workshop on Smart Cities. Four new members join the family: IIT Dhanbad (India), IIT Roorkee (India), Universidad Politécnica Madrid (Spain) and KTH (Sweden).

May 2019 (27th – 28th): 3rd GA of the HERITAGE NETWORK, hosted by Instituto Superior Técnico (Portugal)

Second Workshop theme: Human Oriented Engineering. Prof. Manuela Galli, Polimi /  Prof. Pratyush Kumar, IIT Madras Five new members join the family : IIT Delhi (India), IIT Ropar (India), Université Libre de Bruxelles (Belgium), Universitat Politécnica of Catalunya (Spain), Technische Universität Dresden (Germany).

2020: The HERITAGE NETWORK maintains its activities online

March 20, 2020: The 4th GA due to be hosted by IIT Guwahati is postponed until further notice due to the coronavirus outbreak.
June 27, 2020: Online consortium meeting, new prospective members are introduced to the Network
October 5, 2020: Four new members are elected online to join the HERITAGE NETWORK: IIT Indore (India), IIT Tirupati (India), NITK Surathkal (India) and the University of Genoa (Italy).

May 2021 (5th): 4th GA of the HERITAGE NETWORK (online)

This long-awaited General Assembly was the occasion to introduce the Network to the new staff involved in the member institutions and build solid grounds for future cooperation.
The future of the Heritage Network will be shaped by the freshly elected new President Prof. Raghunathan Rengaswamy (IIT Madras) and Vice-President Prof. Teresa Zielinska (WUT). More information on the Heritage Network current governance here.

October 2022 (20th - 22nd): 5th GA of the HERITAGE NETWORK, hosted by Indian Institute of Technology Madras (India)

The activities of the network resume to face to face, at last! It's the opportunity for the President Prof. Raghnuathan Rengaswamy, elected online during the pandemic, to welcome at his home institutions the members of the Heritage Network and share his vision for the future.

June 2023 (1st - 2nd): 6th GA of the HERITAGE NETWORK, hosted by Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (Spain)

This General Assembly revolves around the theme Sustainability: Sustainable development courses, University activities, Sustainability programme, Sustainability in Research in Science... the debates and brainstorming sessions are expected to be fruitful and promising to build better practices.TU Dublin becomes 30th member of the Heritage Network and the network launches the project of establishing joint summer schools.