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Our key takeaways from the QS India-UK Roundtable on The Innovation Corridor
25 September 2025
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Our key takeaways from the QS India-UK Roundtable on The Innovation Corridor
Ahead of the QS India Summit in Goa in early 2026, stakeholders from across the UK and India gathered in central London to discuss opportunities the India-UK Innovation Corridor offers.
Speaking at the QS UK-India Roundtable at the House of Lords this week, Secretary General of the Association of Indian Universities, Pankaj Mittal, said, “Indian students have been given freedom in the National Education Policy 2020”, as she referenced the Academic Bank of Credits designed to offer seamless credit mobility between programmes at different institutions.
It is this vision for India’s higher education system that international universities are unpacking as they seek to engage with partners and students across the world’s most populous country.
India’s one billion under 35s
International branch campuses and the collaborative agreements that the NEP has fostered are transforming the Indian higher education landscape, but the challenge of accessibility remains. Currently, some 65% of India’s 1.4 billion population is under the age of 35 – a figure that will soon reach one billion.
The gross enrolment rate is currently at 28%. The NEP aims to raise this figure to 50% by 2035. Putting this into context, the actual number of students this rise represents is equivalent to more than the entire population in the UK, Mittal added.
'Funmi Olonisakin from King’s College London emphasised the need to create impact at scale, a priority also recognised in countries such as Nigeria.
While IBCs are unlikely to be the answer for meeting this enrolment target, co-creating curriculum that can then be scaled up is one model that partner institutions could explore, she noted.
For many UK institutions in the room, transnational education has been mulled in order to be less reliant on visa regulation and government policy. Some attendees noted that visa delays and access could limit the success of joint PhD programmes between institutions in the two countries.
Internationalising India
Mittal also noted the establishment of the Indian Network for Internationalisation of Higher Education, a consortium of some 100 institutions that seek to become more international.
“The ambition is there, but many institutions do not knowhow to [internationalise],” she said.
Since last year’s event, little improvement has been made in the number of UK students travelling to India.
“UK outbound mobility to India is still negligible,” QS CEO, Jessica Turner, noted in her introduction.
“If we are serious about preparing globally minded graduates, then short-term immersion programmes and reciprocal exchanges must become part of our mainstream strategies, not just the exception.”
This theme was picked up by a number of delegates, including Maddalaine Ansell, head of education at the British Council, who noted that branch campuses could result in more UK students travelling to study in India. The possibility of the UK rejoining the Erasmus+ programme, which is currently under negotiation, could widen participation, she continued.
“These new campuses can overcome barriers to outward mobility,” she said.
In addition to this, international branch campuses offer UK universities a hub from which to coordinate engagement and identify new research partners.
Several participants mentioned the need to engage industry and instill entrepreneurial skills in graduates.
Job creators
It comes days after UK Business Secretary, Peter Kyle, knocked UK students for lacking the entrepreneurial drive and vigour of their American counterparts.
Attendees highlighted new approaches that feature placements in each country that will benefit not only learners, but also the countries’ economies.
“How do we empower students to become job makers and how do we facilitate entrepreneurship?” one stakeholder asked.
In addition, delegates asked whether branch campuses can replicate the successful spinouts that UK universities have proven experience in producing.
But beyond campuses, how can other models – such as joint research institutes, shared digital learning platforms, co-developed degrees – engage industry and business in India to help them to innovate, access graduates with the skills needed to drive business success and meet the objectives of students and institutions?
In the same way that the NEP has given students freedom, it has widened opportunities for international universities in India.
“In the future the collaboration between the UK and India will be much higher,” Mittal concluded. “Avail of this opportunity before others take it.”
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