This agreement comes a few months after the joint statement by the Indian Prime Minister and the President of the French Republic to increase exchanges between French and Indian higher education institution (India - France Joint Statement on the State Visit of H.E. Mr. Emmanuel Macron, President of French Republic, to India, January 2024).
Anne-Lucie Wack, Director General of the Institut Agro, and Pr. Virendra Kumar Tewari, Director of IIT Kharagpur, both agree on the consequential significance of this agreement, which brings the two engineering schools closer together and opens up a new era of collaboration between Institut Agro and India's oldest institute of technology.

Ranked 5^th amongst Indian institutions in the latest QS World University Rankings, and 1^st in the field of agriculture, the Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur is the only IIT in India with a department of agricultural and food engineering.

This framework agreement covers all academic departments of both Institut Agro and IIT Kharagpur. It is designed to promote cooperation in the fields of research and training between the two institutions, to strengthen scientific partnerships, to encourage academic mobility for both staff and students, and to develop exchange and research programmes on a basis of reciprocity and mutual interest.
This is a long-term partnership that also aims to strengthen the technological, social and cultural relations between the two countries, reflecting the shared commitment of France and India to align with the key areas of cooperation promoted by the United Nations, and in particular with the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)'s efforts to help build a world free from hunger.

IIT Kharagpur's academics have developed strong links over time with their counterparts at Institut Agro, in particular with the IATE team (Agropolymer Engineering and Emerging Technologies) and its deputy director, Eric Dubreucq, professor of microbial and enzymatic biotechnology and head of the chemistry and bioprocesses for sustainable development track at Institut Agro Montpellier.

From an initial collaboration in bioproduct chemistry in 2010, a range of common research areas have been identified since then, including food science, water management and irrigation, agronomy and agricultural machinery, precision agriculture and green chemistry.

During their visit to Montpellier (2-3 October 2024), the Indian delegation got to see that the two higher education institutions had a lot in common, as they visited different research labs and carried on discussions with various teams from Institut Agro.

• Prof. Virendra Kumar Tewari, an agricultural engineer and professor specialising in precision agriculture and water management, and current Director at IIT Kharagpur, greatly appreciated the data science courses focused on precision agriculture, his visit of the hydraulic hall and the presentation of the Masters in Water Sciences.
• Prof. Rintu Banerjee, Deputy Director of the Department of Agricultural and Food Engineering at ITT Kharagpur, who was already very familiar with the IATE research lab which she had previously visited twice, noted a lot of convergence between the work carried out within the Qualisud lab and her own research, particularly on the cashew nut industry, as well as the wide range of Master's courses available in English.
• Prof. Mukherjee Rabibrata, ITT Kharagpur's Dean of international relations, gave a detailed presentation of the current calls for tenders launched by the Indian government and by IIT Kharagpur to facilitate faculty exchanges.

Beyond training and research, Institut Agro and ITT Kharagpur share a common ambition to support innovation and territorial development. Following the presentation of  Greenphage, a start-up working on natural precision antibacterial solutions for human, animal, plant, and environmental health, and an overview of the Agropolis innovation ecosystem, Pr Rintu Banerjee gave a presentation of IIT Kharagpur's ABIF Agri Business Incubation Foundation, which supports the development of over 150 start-ups.