MIRANDA HOUSE HAS BEEN RANKED NO.1 AMONG COLLEGES BY NIRF RANKING 2023

Linkages, Networks and Collaborations: The college strongly believes that it takes a community to educate a student. It is important for the student to be exposed early to multiple viewpoints and multiple ways of approaching any problem or constructing knowledge. The college is networked more than ever before through various enrichment activities with other reputed organizations in the academic, corporate and social sectors in the city of Delhi, and across the country. Given the reputation of the college, the best experts and renowned academicians and scientists are always keen to visit the college, address the students and participate in collaborative activities and programmes. College has established collaborative Programmes with 11 International Academic Institutions such as King's College, London, UK; Utrecht Business School, the Netherland; George Washington University, USA; Wisconsin University, Eu-Claire, USA; to name a few. The Programmes include Bilateral Exchange Programmes, organization of workshops and Add-on courses. The international programmes are listed under the section on Global Outreach.

Collaborative teaching, enriching curriculum: Being located on the DU north campus is an added advantage. MH faculty are in regular contact with the parent departments and many have ongoing research collaborations. The DU faculty are also frequent visitors to MH, giving lectures and interacting with students. Senior DU professors and deans serve on advisory committees, and are invited to chair sessions in programmes with extremely distinguished outside visitors. The college is invited to DU Lecture Series, events at DU departments and other DU colleges. Students and faculty often attend these programmes together. DU also asks the college to host international visitors to the campus for an opportunity to experience interaction with a bright UG cohort.

The prescribed curriculum is enriched by a spiral approach that allows revisiting any topic with increasing depth and complexity. Effective implementation of curriculum requires time to build a wider perspective with diverse examples and applications in real world contexts. To this end, the college organizes several lectures and interactive sessions on themes related to the curriculum by professionals and experts drawn from higher academia, research institutes, civil society, social sector, and industry, et cetera. These are frequently synchronized with curricular teaching of the topic to provide the maximum conceptual benefit to the student.

Contemporary Value Add-on Courses and Short-term Certificate Courses: MH also offers several Add-on Courses in areas of contemporary interest, such as Bioinformatics and in Silico Medicine; Medical Biotechnology; Green Chemistry; and Operations Research. It also offers short term certificate courses such as on Women and Law; Consumer Rights; etc. These help build competencies for new domains of knowledge and the future of work in a globally connected world. The very best specialist resource persons, drawn from other organizations, are invited to teach different topics. The vast network of collaborations has led to successful execution of several Add-on courses at Miranda House.

Skill Development Courses: In response to national mission on Skill development for youth, MH has introduced several courses that cater to student diversity in collaboration with the National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC) and Training Partners.

  • Miranda House leveraged the opportunity to introduce the NSDC STAR Programme wherein students were imparted a 30 days Skill Training Course with National Certification. A total of 118 students participated in Courses such as Business Correspondent, Equity Dealer, and Gems and Jewellery. Miranda House joined the Pilot Programme of NSDC organizing Orientation wherein several NSDC Training Partners made presentations on courses offered in select sectors.
  • MIHER Skill Academy: In collaboration withMax Institute of Health Education and Research, the college initiated a 480 hours Health Care Training course that spreads across two semesters.
  • Ants Consulting & Services Pvt. Ltd.: College started a Media and Entertaining Training Course of 120 hours duration that is covered in one semester in association with Ants Consulting & Services Pvt. Ltd.
  • Lok Bharati Skilling Solutions Pvt. Ltd.: Short term English Communication Courses were collaboratively designed and offered through the MH EOC.

International Summer Schools and Seminar Courses: On the other end of the scale, MH nurtures its gifted and advanced learners. It runs the King's College International Sumer School in Delhi at MH to provide exposure to new pedagogic approaches adopted by international faculty. Students are admitted to reputed universities based on MH's reputation. MH has agreements for bilateral exchange with several global institutions and is fast moving towards internationalization.

Undergraduate Research Projects: As part of UG research projects, science students also visit research organizations to get training or use facilities. This approach has led to a strong stakeholder network. Students are introduced to the frontiers of knowledge; get a ringside view of advanced research in the country and are also participants in various capacities as they are encouraged to undertake field trips, excursions, summer projects, internships, etc. All this aids progression in career and higher education.

  • Science students regularly use research facilities available in the parent Departments at DU and USIC.
  • Department of Chemistry uses facilities at INMAS-DRDO and IIT-Delhi.
  • Department of Zoology uses facilities at ACBR, VPCI, INMAS-DRDO, IGIB, ICGEB, NII and IIT-Delhi.
  • Department of Physics uses research facilities available at JNU, IIT-Delhi, NPL, SSPL-Delhi, IISc.-Bangalore, CEERI-Pilani, SCL-Chandigarh, INMAS-DRDO, and DMRL-Hyderabad.
  • The Department of Botany uses research facilities at Department of Environmental Studies, DU, IIT-Delhi and PMB-UDSC.
  • In addition, students participate in various summer internship programmes offered at different institutes such as TIFR, JNU, IITs, IISc., NII, IISERs and HBCSE.
  • Researchers have access to all E-journals and databases that are available through DULS and INFLIBNET N-LIST. E-resources available on other Library Resource Centres such as American Centre Library, British Council Library and DELNET can be accessed.
  • Students and faculty members also take memberships of other libraries such as CSL, National Medical Library, IARI, CRL, Indian Council of Social Science Research Library, Indian Council of Historical Research, National Archives of India, Archeological Survey of India, Libraries of Delhi School of Economics and Institute of Economic Growth etc.

CSIR-OSDD Centre: In collaboration with CSIR, college has set up a OSDD Centre wherein basic Cheminformatics and Bioinformatics tools are used for designing novel lead generation strategies which will enable researchers to carry out work on identification of the potential protein inhibitors as M. tuberculosis Drug Targets.

Science Setu Programme: This prestigious programme of National Institute of Immunology (NII) aims to contribute to the national goal of encouraging bright young minds to pursue S&T as a career option. It brings together science faculty of 8 colleges to work together to strengthen science teaching at undergraduate level. The MoU between the two institutions states that NII will work with MH to

  • address the changing teaching, learning and research scenario in biology
  • link NII in the spirit of "success through access" to UG teaching in biology
  • engage a talent pool of biology students in the delivery of innovation, research and continuous development
  • act, through all the above, as a catalyst of change.

DBT Star College Scheme: The college was granted DBT Star College Scheme in 2011. Since its inception, a total grant of Rs. 75 lakh has been utilized by the 5 participating Science Departments of Botany, Zoology, Chemistry, Physics, and Computer Science. Major portion of the funds have been utilized for buying latest equipment required for upgrading teaching/research labs. This has improved the infrastructure available for undergraduate teaching. Some Departments have added several books to their libraries through this grant. The recurring grant of Rs. 2 lakh per Department enabled purchase of consumables and organization of workshops.

e-Yantra Robotics Laboratory: MH signed up for e-Yantra Lab Setup Initiative (eLSI) to establish a Robotics Lab in 2013-14. Facilitated by IIT Mumbai and sponsored by MHRD, it aims for effective Embedded systems and Robotics education across colleges in India by (i) providing training for teachers and students; (ii) engaging teachers and students in hands-on experiments with robots; and (iii) helping colleges to set up Robotics labs/clubs.

Spoken Tutorial-Digital India, IIT-Mumbai: National Mission on Education through ICT is a programme funded by MHRD. Under this programme, Computer Science Department has organized several events such as Online Test in C++. Students performed exceptionally well and were awarded certificates.

Adopt a Monument: Department of History regularly participates in workshops organized by INTACH to make citizens aware of their role in the conservation and preservation of building, natural material and living heritage. MH students have explored Pir Ghaib, a Tughlaq period monument on the Kamla Nehru Ridge and the Baoli close to it as part of Adopt a Monument initiative.

TERI: MH has several collaborative activities with TERI. 7 MH-Vatavaran student volunteers were selected to participate in the prestigious Annual YUVA Meet 2016. One student was selected as LeadEarth Fellow in 2013-14 to work on a technology development for sustainable water management. In this project, water from science laboratories was recycled using different techniques such as ion exchange.

Disaster Research Programme (DRP): Under this College Cluster Initiative, MH students have undertaken the project Neighbourhood Mapping and Assessment of Disaster Risk and Vulnerability for Selected Places in and around University of Delhi, North Campus with a grant of Rs. 2 lakh sanctioned by JNU. The Project is aimed at sensitizing the youth by involving them in participatory neighbourhood mapping programme for disaster risk reduction.

Academia-Industry Partnership

  • IRIS Publication Pvt. Ltd. has signed an MoU under which the AWS was installed in January 2016 and training programmes conducted.
  • Bright Infotech has developed various software modules for the college. These include those for online submission of application forms for recruitment of faculty, for API linked promotion of serving faculty and for admission process in 2015-16. MH became the first college to move towards paperless admissions.
  • Hero Motocorp has begun working with Disaster Preparedness Group from Department of Geography. In association with Delhi Police, it organized the Ride Safe Awareness Programme during the National Road Safety Week, 10 to16 January 2016. Delhi Traffic Police officials gave an informative presentation on Two Wheeler Safety.
  • Weekendr Innovation Labs Pvt. Ltd. trained 20 science students from two DU Innovation Project groups on App Development for Android Systems, organized collaboratively in the college.
  • Guiding Star Digital Publishers LLP Ltd. has collaboratively developed a teacher friendly, offline Mobile Attendance App which is being beta tested by faculty members. The company has also trained a group of Physics and Computer Science students for developing Mobile Apps for the college.
  • KPMG is mentoring student members of Enactus.
  • Google Ltd. launched Miranda Goes Google! Programme for MH as the college entered an MoU to use Google Apps for education.
  • BHEL and ONGC organized joint events with MH during Vigilance Week.

Academia-NGO Partnership

The Miranda House community has strong engagements and linkages with NGO's in various sectors. Green Technology Centre established at Miranda House is often showcased as an example of best practices. Students have been working in close association with NGOs such as Pravah, Sewa Bharati, Bhumi, Maitri, CRY, Udaan, Sulabh International and Shiksha Rath, working in the field of primary education, healthcare and sanitation, rural enterprise development and deconstructing gender notions. Some illustrative collaborations are:

  • Project Tarang was launched by MH in collaboration with NGO Maitri and has employed women from the slums of Sonia Vihar and R.K. Puram, and trained them in stitching and sewing. The products like dupattas and cloth pouches are also sold on the online shopping portal ItsHandMade.
  • GreenBandhu has provided knowhow for establishment of the Compost Plant for Solid Waste Management.
  • IPCA has an MoU for assistance with safe disposal of plastic waste. The college has purchased two wall-mounted PET bottle balers (compressors) and a dustbin created using sheets fabricated from recycled TetraPak for collection.
  • Shriram Institute for Industrial Research is lending support to the Paper Recycling Plant by providing bamboo pulp for strengthening paper.
  • Society for Child Development occasionally uses the Paper Recycling Plant for making pulp and calendering sheets, which are finally used for making paper products by physically challenged children.