IIT-Bombay May Set Up Campus in New York

In early 2011, IIT-Bombay threw its hat into one of the most ambitious municipal higher-education experiments in American history. New York City, under Mayor Michael Bloomberg, had invited universities from around the world to bid for a new applied-sciences campus -- offering free city land and up to $100 million in capital to the winner. The New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC) had launched the Applied Sciences NYC initiative in December 2010, betting that a world-class engineering school would anchor jobs and growth.

IIT-Bombay's answer was an initial proposal for a New York campus offering post-graduate programs in five disciplines. "Having a campus there will make a huge difference," A. Q. Contractor, the institute's Dean of Alumni and Corporate Relations, told the Indian Express. "We will be able to engage with US universities on a closer basis and they too will be able to see our capabilities first hand." A detailed proposal was expected by October.

The bid reflected a moment of genuine confidence. IIT graduates were already among the most sought-after engineers and entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley and on Wall Street; the question was whether the institution itself could earn a global footprint, rather than remaining a talent exporter whose graduates were famous but whose campuses were not.

What followed is a matter of record. IIT-Bombay later joined an NYU-led consortium -- with Carnegie Mellon, the University of Toronto, the University of Warwick, and the City University of New York -- bidding to establish the Centre for Urban Science and Progress (CUSP) in downtown Brooklyn, a graduate research center for more than 500 students focused on the problems of mega-cities. Cornell and the Technion won the headline Roosevelt Island campus; the CUSP consortium was named the competition's second winner in April 2012.

Whether or not a full IIT-Bombay campus ever rose in New York, the 2011 bid marked the moment India's premier engineering institution started imagining itself as a global university -- not just a global talent pipeline.