Shiv Nadar University to come up in Greater Noida

The Shiv Nadar Foundation on Monday saidit will establish a university in Greater Noida to offer undergraduate,postgraduate and professional degrees across a number of disciplines.

The Uttar Pradesh government has enacted the necessarylegislation for the establishment of the Shiv Nadar University in the state, a statementsaid.

"UP has an extremely progressive approach towardseducation and we are thankful for the support of the state government which hasapproved our proposal to establish the Shiv Nadar University," Shiv Nadar FoundationTrustee TSR Subramanian said.

Apart from the students it will benefit directly, it willalso contribute to the development of the state by enhancing its position as aneducation hub," Subramanian said.

The Shiv Nadar Foundation has also appointed Nikhil Sinha asthe founding Vice-Chancellor of the University. The Shiv Nadar Universitywill commence operations this academic year.

 The University will begin its academic programmes with thelaunch of the School of Engineering thisacademic year and plans to roll out other schools in the coming years,including schools of business, humanities, natural sciences and socialsciences.

The University's most significant differentiator will be thestrong emphasis on interdisciplinary research that will cut across all schools,the statement said.

"While Indiacan be justifiably proud of having a robust education infrastructure, it hasnot uniformly kept in tune with the current Indian and global needs in highereducation. The progressive outlook of Uttar Pradesh has enabled us to set up aUniversity with a multidisciplinary and research led character to address manyof these issues," HCL Technologies and Shiv Nadar Foundation Chairman ShivNadar said.

Last year, HCL Corporation, promoted by Nadar and hisfamily, sold a 2.5 per cent stake in group firm HCL Technologies to raise overRs 581 crore, the proceeds of which were to be utilised for the Foundation.

The University is located on a 286 acre campus in GreaterNoida and Phase-I of the campus development plan would accommodate 4,000students. When fully completed, the campus will accommodate 8,000 students, thestatement added.

The Foundation has been established by HCL founder ShivNadar. It focusses on philanthropic activities in the field of education andhad set up the SSN Institutions in 1996. It runs the VidyaGyan schools and isalso setting up Shiv Nadar Schools across India.