Internationalization has been an important aspect of higher education development in India. India maintains educational cooperation activities with different international organizations, multilateral bodies and bilateral agencies. It sends the second largest number of students abroad for studies. India plans to make it an education hub and a preferred destination for international students. The government has introduced various programmes in the recent past to enhance its global role in education.
To achieve the objective of playing a lead role in international cooperation requires a mechanism to provide an analysis of the context of specific cooperation arrangements, generation of empirical evidence and preparation of documents for effective participation of India in international forums. The Unit for International Cooperation (UIC) was created in NIEPA with the objective of extending support to MoE and other decision making bodies on matters related to international cooperation in education through its research and documentation, advisory and monitoring role. UIC is an integral part of NIEPA and it functions in close collaboration with the International Cooperation Division of the MoE.