Liver Foundation, a non-profit organisation that operates a liver disease hospital in Sonarpur, is set to establish an institute of higher education that will integrate health sciences, humanities, social sciences, climate science, and communication, moving beyond traditional academic silos.

The foundation has purchased a six-acre plot in Sonarpur to set up the university. They have set a goal for starting the classes, or at least some of them, by the end of 2027.

Academics, researchers, academic administrations and communication consultants from across the country held a brainstorming session on Sunday, where they discussed what shape the proposed institute should take.

“What infrastructure will be needed, how the courses can be framed and what would be the method of assessment were some of the issues discussed at the brainstorming session,” said Partha Sarathi Mukherjee, the secretary of Liver Foundation.

Sunday’s brainstorming session began with a talk by Nobel laureate and professor of economics at Massachusetts Institute of Technology Abhijit Vinayak Banerjee.

An official of Liver Foundation said Banerjee harped on having best young
minds from academia in the faculty of the proposed institute and allow them academic freedom.

Subroto Bagchi, entrepreneur and founder of IT services and consulting company Mindtree; Susmita Bagchi, entrepreneur and writer; Gagandeep Kang, director, global health, Gates Foundation; Chandan Sen, professor of surgery at the University of Pittsburgh; Mahesh Rangarajan, professor at the Ashoka University, and Souvik Bhattacharyya, former vice-chancellor of BITS Pilani and Jadavpur University, were present at the Sonarpur hospital for the session.

The proposed university will come up in Sonarpur, about 3km from the hospital.

“We will have an interdisciplinary curriculum. We will go for a talent hunt of the best faculty and also the students. No educational institution can do well without good students,” said Abhijit Chowdhury, chief patron of the Liver Foundation.

“We have set out on this path as we want to build an institution of excellence recognised nationally but based out of Bengal,” added Chowdhury.

Students not opting for traditional general degree courses or even engineering courses have emerged as a cause of concern in academia.

This newspaper reported on September 16 that over 150 of the 1,308 BTech seats at Jadavpur University were vacant after the centralised counselling conducted by the state Joint Entrance Examinations (JEE) Board.

Streams such as computer science and engineering, electrical engineering and electronics — in which seats have gone unclaimed — were among the most sought-after in the country.

The proposed institute by the Liver Foundation will focus on emerging areas that are becoming crucial and that would attract many students.

Climate change, medical law and ethics, performing and liberal arts, mental health and behavioural sciences and artificial intelligence and data science are some of the subjects that are in the minds of the foundation’s members.

“Everyone is looking at employability. They are looking at courses that are likely to lead to a job afterwards. This proposed university is trying to build a novel curriculum,” said Kang.

“An understanding of medical anthropology or sociology is really important for medicine, but we really do not have enough people qualified in those specific fields. People do a PhD in anthropology, but it is not ingrained in the bachelor’s or master’s degree curriculum,” she said.