Union Education Minister Pralhad Joshi met France’s Minister for Higher Education, Research and Space Philippe Baptiste in New Delhi on Monday, with India inviting French higher education institutions to explore setting up branch campuses in the country. The Ministry of Education said the institutions were invited to consider campuses in GIFT City, Gujarat, as well as locations where French companies are present and require technical manpower.
The two ministers discussed strengthening cooperation in higher education, including student, faculty and researcher mobility, institutional partnerships and collaborative academic programmes and exchanges, the ministry said in a statement. They also discussed greater cooperation in life sciences, social sciences and humanities, with a focus on collaborative academic activities and research. The two sides are also working on the revision of the India-France Mutual Recognition of Qualifications agreement.
The discussions come as India has opened its higher education sector to foreign universities under the University Grants Commission’s 2023 regulations for setting up and operating campuses in the country.
The government has so far issued 16 letters of intent to foreign higher education institutions from Australia, Italy, the UK and the US, according to a Parliament reply in August. The University of Southampton and the University of New South Wales have already established campuses in Gurugram and Bengaluru, respectively.
GIFT City has separately emerged as a location for international higher education institutions, with foreign universities able to establish campuses under the regulatory framework governing the International Financial Services Centre.
The meeting also came in the year of the India-France Year of Innovation 2026. In June, the inaugural edition of Bharat Innovates was held in Nice, France, where Prime Minister Narendra Modi and French President Emmanuel Macron jointly inaugurated the three-day event. Organised by the Indian government, the platform brought Indian deep-tech start-ups, researchers and innovators together with global investors and innovation partners.
The two sides also discussed building on existing research and innovation partnerships and expanding technology-enabled learning, adding an education dimension to the broader India-France innovation partnership.
“Acknowledging the importance of people-to-people ties, the two sides explored opportunities to strengthen language learning and teacher education, share academic expertise and promote technology-enabled learning,” the ministry said in its statement.
