The Music Technology Group (MTG) from the Department of Information and Communication Technologies (DTIC) of Universitat Pompeu Fabra (UPF) and the Department of Computer Science and Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IIT) was signed an agreement, gathers several collaboration categories which consider among them the exchange of students.

The negotiation of the partnership agreement between the MTG and the IIT-Madras (Chennai, India) ended last July and it is related to the collaboration previously established between both groups over the performance of the CompMusic project.

This project is funded by the European Research Council (ERC) and lead by Xavier Serra, who is the MTG director, and it aims to advance in the automatic description of music by taking a culture specific approach. It focuses on five non occidental music traditions belonging to China, India, North Africa and Turkey. Two of them, the Hindustani and the Carnatic have the origin in the north of India and the south of India respectively.

According to the agreement clauses, both institutions will exchange students with the idea to keep a constant flux of visitors between them. Faculty members from both institutions have committed themselves to supervise the students that will participate in a research program of common interest for the two groups.

Student Exchange Conditions

This specific agreement may be also renewed and it will actually remain in effect until 2018. Moreover, it will cover the participation of students that are pursuing a research project as part of their degree (B. Tech, M. Tech, M. Sc., PhD or equivalent)

Each part agreed to accept up to three students per academic year and each participant may not spend more than one academic year in the exchange program.

Although the host institution will reserve the right to make final judgment on the admission of the shortlisted candidates, following the agreement terms, the participant students will be selected by the home institution.

The idea that MTG has is to replicate this exchange agreement with the different institutions which participates in the CompMusic project, such as the Indian Institute of Technology of Bombay or the Bahçeşehir Üniversitesi in Turkey.

The initiative promoted by MTG-UPF faculty and research members launches a new academic and research collaboration program that it will not just enhance the student exchange, but also the culture enrichment and the science knowledge in the music technology field.