NSIS National Awareness Day 2026 Hosted at MRIIRS Faridabad: Advancing Digital and Research Skills for Innovation

The NSIS Erasmus+ Capacity Building in Higher Education (CBHE) project continued its 2026 outreach programme with a successful National Awareness Day (NAD) hosted by the Manav Rachna International Institute of Research and Studies (MRIIRS) in Faridabad, India, on 12 March 2026. The event brought together universities and stakeholders from across India and served as a high-visibility dissemination platform for the project’s objectives, progress, and expected impact. Designed as a forum for knowledge exchange and strategic dialogue, the NAD also contributed to strengthening cooperation among higher education institutions in the region, reinforcing the project’s role in supporting innovation-led development.

Organised by MRIIRS in collaboration with MIT World Peace University (Pune) and Sathyabama Institute of Science and Technology (Chennai), the event highlighted the NSIS vision and created space for meaningful engagement among academic leaders, researchers, and policy stakeholders. The discussions underscored the growing relevance of universities as not only centres of education and research, but also as key actors in regional innovation ecosystems—capable of driving entrepreneurship, supporting knowledge transfer, and enabling evidence-based growth.

The NSIS project—officially titled “Developing Information, Research, and Digital Skills for Business, Innovation and Entrepreneurship”—aims to strengthen the capacity of universities in India, Sri Lanka, and Nepal to deliver modern skills training aligned with the needs of researchers, students, and emerging business communities. A central focus of the event was the project’s modular training approach and its ability to build sustainable competence development systems within universities, ensuring long-term benefits beyond the immediate project timeline.

During the programme, Dr Padraig Kirby, Project Lead and Erasmus+ Coordinator for NSIS, provided an overview of the project framework and presented the structure of the 10-module curriculum. He explained that the curriculum would address a wide range of essential and timely themes, including digital literacy, data skills, intellectual property rights, online research publication, academic writing, and business management. Importantly, he noted that the modules will be delivered through an online learning platform, ensuring flexible access and enabling universities across the three partner countries to implement training in a scalable and sustainable manner. This blended learning approach is expected to expand participation and strengthen professional development opportunities for diverse audiences within higher education institutions.

The strategic relevance of the project was further reinforced by Dr Sarita Sachdeva, Institutional Project Coordinator and Dean of Research at MRIIRS, who emphasised that the rapid pace of technological transformation and the increasing importance of knowledge-based economies require higher education institutions to invest more actively in digital competencies, research skills, and enhanced access to information. She highlighted that NSIS provides a timely framework for partner institutions to collaborate more closely, exchange good practices, and enhance their internal capacities to foster research-driven entrepreneurship. In doing so, the project contributes to the development of more sustainable, innovation-oriented regional economies, anchored in stronger links between universities, research communities, and the broader socio-economic environment.

Overall, the National Awareness Day in Faridabad represented a significant step in strengthening the visibility and national impact of the NSIS initiative in India. By convening multiple institutions and promoting shared understanding of the project’s training objectives, the event supported the project’s dissemination mission while also laying the groundwork for future uptake, scaling, and long-term institutionalisation of the NSIS curriculum and online learning resources.