“The process of education in the US has changed from teaching known knowledge to exploring knowledge, which has added research as a major component of teaching,” says Donald Chand, who has taught at Bentley University in the US and IIM-Ahmedabad. The need of the hour in India, therefore, is to teach students how to explore knowledge and create new knowledge. This requires collaboration among Indian universities, besides tying up with Western institutions. Indian universities could learn from the way US institutes collaborate in fuel production, says Priya Ranjan, a research assistant professor at the University of Tennessee. Bioenergy centres in the US combine expertise from public universities and private organisations in researching better ways to produce fuel. “Research collaboration brings about quality research in less time and prevents multiple resources being allocated to the same project at different universities,” Kumar says. Collaboration with Western universities may include both students and teachers. Short-term student exchange programmes ranging for a week to a semester with Western universities would expose Indian students to cutting-edge research, while Indian universities could emulate their US counterparts in allowing the lateral entry of international academics for periods ranging from a semester to a couple of years under a visiting scholars programme. This provides visiting academics with exposure to US academia, while US universities get to utilise international talent.