India
This is an Erasmus+ International Credit Mobility project of the Faculty of Humanities with the University of Hyderabad.
Project details
Leiden University coordinator:
- Faculty of Humanities, project coordinator: Niels Schiller
Partner institution:
- University of Hyderabad
Type of mobility:
-
Staff and student exchange
Project duration:
- 2020-2023
Project summary
This exchange programme will establish an interesting partnership with one of the top universities in India, the University of Hyderabad (UoH). The partnership will allow for cross-cultural comparative studies that are paramount for future developments in psycholinguistics. The goal of the proposed project is to exchange and strengthen expertise between the Experimental Linguistics Lab Facilities in Leiden and the Action Control and Cognition Lab of the UoH in the area of psycholinguistics and neurolinguistics and in applied aspects of bilingualism research. The two labs are complementary in that the Cognition Lab in Hyderabad specialises in eye-tracking and the Leiden lab has expertise in cognitive neuroscience methods such as EEG and fMRI. These methods can be used in combination to provide a comprehensive understanding of the issues the project is aiming to examine. The major focus of this mobility exchange is the sharing of technical know-how, methodological and analytical strategies and cross-cultural comparison.
We will also undertake experiments in the area of bilingualism. The grant will allow us to undertake cross-cultural experiments that are otherwise difficult to organise. We wish to replicate existing studies in both countries with similar samples of bilinguals.
With this funding, we will be able to promote staff and student mobility from Leiden to Hyderabad and vice versa. Given the many opportunities in sight, the grant will also be a stepping stone for further collaboration and grant-writing between Hyderabad and Leiden.
The internationalisation of the curriculum, faculty and student exchanges has been a part of the UoH’s academic policies for a long time. More recently, with important changes in Indian higher education, the UoH has the mandate to further enhance its global visibility through appropriate collaborations with leading universities in the world. Leiden University, as one of the most prominent universities of the Netherlands, is a potential collaborative partner in fulfilling such a vision.
The UoH was recently accorded the Institute of Eminence (IoE) status. As a result, it will receive additional grants and more financial and administrative autonomy to execute its plans over 15 years. The UoH is expected to break into the top-500 ranking of world Universities. One of the main goals of the IoE is to enable the students and faculty of the UoH to compete globally and match international standards of research and teaching. The aim of this project fits this mandate very well.
The countries of the EU remain a high priority collaborative partner for the UoH. One of the mandates under IoE accreditation is to collaborate with high-ranking universities abroad. Both Leiden University and the UoH are top-tier research universities and have multidisciplinary research cultures. Both universities cater for students and researchers who are multicultural in their outlook. This makes them perfectly conducive for conducting cross-cultural language cognition research. Finally, being the top-ranking Dutch university, Leiden University is certainly a preferred research partner for the UoH, which has consistently been rated as one of India’s top research universities.