Dr. Samrat Ray is serving as the Dean and Head of International Relations at IIMS, Pune. He has completed his PhD from St. Petersburg, Russia in the field of economics and management at Peter the Great Saint Petersburg Polytechnic University. He has worked under the Russian government in various advanced fields of neuromarketing, sensory marketing, behavioural economics and big data innovations in the top ten Russian research framework laboratories in Moscow. Additionally, he has completed three master's degrees with distinction from premier European and Indian universities in advanced management sciences. He is a prolific author and researcher, having more than 50 Scopus-indexed publications in peer-reviewed journals from reputed publishers like Sage, Elsevier, Frontiers, and Hindawi belonging to the Q1 segment.

Dr. Ray has been the author of six international and national patents on innovation and marketing management from the USA, Australia, India and Canada. He has served as a keynote speaker and conducted management development programs for various Fortune 500 companies in Europe and Dubai. He has also been the author of two books on machine learning and artificial intelligence. He has international experience working with Dubai Education departments to start new courses and training programs and has been involved with the Russian Innovation Network and Russian education forums. Moreover, he has also been involved with incubations at IIM Calcutta for strategy and policy-making for new start-ups and provided consulting for new start-up companies. Currently, he is ranked in the top two percent of global scientists and 47th in Russia in management sciences by the ADscienceresearch index for global ranking 2023 for scientists. He has also been the recipient of various honors and prizes globally for his contribution to management sciences.

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You have held key positions at education institutes throughout your professional career. What keeps you connected with the Education Sector and how has your experience been so far with the institute?

I have been fortunate to work with stalwarts in the education sector like IIMS, Pune Founder President, and Prof. Mnaish R. Mundada with whom I have been actively involved in charting out institutional effectiveness and global strategy. Policy making is an art and it takes time to realize the effectiveness of educational strategy which can in fact help student success and empowerment. Though for decades I have been working with global academic institutions in Dubai, European countries, and Russia in policy implications and leadership development, my stay at IIMS, Pune has given me new perspectives in unique segment handling. I have truly learned from visionaries at the helm and worked and applied whatever fits for charting out best principle practises in academic management. My passion is still imbibed in the core fundamentals of teaching and empowering youth with modern-day advanced skills. This passion has tied me to educational developments and champions the cause effective institutional thought advancement in great institutions with a legacy like IIMS, Pune. The institute is well recognized, aspirational and charting new growth stories every day, wherein we encourage “Work is a way of Life” through various triggers like classroom engagements, outdoor activities, and industry connections as well as spiritual upliftment. We are among the top B schools in India being judged by reputed accreditation bodies and we are leaders in our unique segment by serving the true aspirational India through our outstanding placement records in global Fortune 500 companies and Big four firms, which speaks for our industry acceptance.

Do you have any extracurricular activities/ programs to enhance the skills of the students or expose them to real-world challenges?

We at IIMS, Pune have always believed that mere theoretical knowledge is not enough to succeed in this diverse and complicated global arena. We believe in the holistic development of students through various activities and projects linked to the World Bank SDG and aligning them with nation-building through self-reliance, governance with an Indian way outlook, education with ethics and integrity through participation in various clubs and Rotaract activities. We believe in directly involving students in sports, health and wellbeing, and a cluster of activities. We believe that one should keep health at the forefront. At IIMS, Pune, every student is exposed to spiritual and emotional upliftment through various cultural activities and exposure to CSR-related charters like handling rural economies through training and skill development. When the Government of India opens up the educational arena to international institutions of repute, we at IIMS, Pune have taken one step ahead in crafting a global affairs strategy wherein renowned scientists and experts are visiting to interact and work with our students on allied functions like big data, AI, ML, and various advanced generative AI platforms through international guest talks and participation in workshops. We firmly believe that an institution is a temple of learning and our students should be trained with a high emotional quotient to be agile and resilient in these fast-changing multipolar global domains with advanced change management skills.

How does the curriculum of the Department of IIMS ensure that the students are being prepared for the future?

Our programme at IIMS, Pune was crafted keeping in mind industrial implications and the changing world order. We craft the curriculum in accordance with international best practises and industry consultation. Our curriculum development is rigid and goes through multiple stages of skimming and trimming endowed with quality benchmarking with leading accreditation bodies like AMBA, EFMD, and AACSB, who justify our quality by being full-fledged members. Our curriculum is technologically relevant, empowering students with smart approach principles wherein they can be ready to face any sort of global challenge by being empowered with facts and figures.

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How do you try to bring in a practical approach towards subjects and make it industry-oriented?

We at IIMS, Pune believe that the global dimension is fast as are the industry requirements. Our curriculum is based on and reviewed by leading scientists and global experts before we involve students in participation. The curriculum surpasses various stages of evolution according to the pandora's box of learning, wherein students are exposed to business simulations to have an aura of real-life learning. We use Bloomberg Terminal to give them global exposure to learning and developments, and various industry-led certifications like KPMG and Microsoft, wherein the industry outlook towards curriculum is rightly balanced.

What are the interventions and approaches you bring in apart from the curriculum to train/teach the students?

We always believe that institutional growth and student empowerment go void when we don’t align to nation-building through proper alignments. That is where our core leadership foundations lie through transforming education through technology, like Bloomberg, Cesim Business Simulations, advanced data science software and industry-ready certifications from KPMG, which are merged while undergoing thorough review from our happy recruiters and industry practitioners who are often involved in designing our course modules. We involve students in industry connections through international talks, workshops, case competitions, and industry interfaces, wherein C-suite CXOs visit us to give first-hand guidance to our youth. Our placement department is one of the best in India, vibrant and led by the principle of serving the marginalised true Indian community, which is aspirational and comes to us with zeal and interest to succeed in life. We realise their hopes and aspirations with global placements and first-class recruitment support, which are two-way through diversity, inclusion, skill development and providing corporations with new energy. This blend of recipes is quite unique and we take pride in our strategy, which in itself is a case study.

Could you please provide information regarding your institution's collaborations with other universities and the specific benefits these partnerships bring to your students?

Aligning with NEP as well as the UGC directive of liberalising the national borders of education, we at IIMS, Pune, have taken aggressive measures to put our institute at the helm of the global educational map and are still advancing through a collaborative and friendly stance. We want to take advantage of QS Top 100 universities from the USA, Europe, the Middle East and Russia’s interests in research, faculty and students charting global strategies for stakeholder empowerment and learning through entrepreneurial universities and the triple helix model of innovation. When long ago Bell Labs, Silicon Valley and USA universities started joint programmes, we at IIMS, Pune, blended the Western school of thought with an Indian way of bringing collaboration, which is functional through student immersion, faculty exchanges and joint research through intercontinental research inputs at the helm through international patents and copyrights. Under the visionary leadership of the Founder President, SBES Prof. Manish R. Mundada, the institution has advanced globally within a short span of time. We have done this through the three Ds, diversity, disruption, and digitization, with a prime focus on inclusion and self-reliance. The institution is committed to nation-building by upholding the NEP charter and national pride through strict allegiance towards human development at its core fundamentals. We have a dedicated Research and Innovation Cell that is in full swing with its collaborative projects, patents and copyrights, wherein faculties are encouraged to research and publish impactful papers in good journals. We also invite foreign collaborations for joint research and developments in advanced fields of business analytics and automation.

Any suggestions you would like to give to the current youth and the aspiring students?

I would like to invite students to participate in the growth story of IIMS, Pune, wherein they can be part of history-making when we embark on a beautiful journey of globalisation and successful industry integration and partake in the wonderful campus at the lap of nature with a regained vigour to serve humanity with grace. Students should instill the courage to go beyond limits and nation-building and also commit to human development through poverty eradication, health, the climate change agenda and global triggers of inequality. Only then can the country truly be a champion of causes. I have been a learner all through my life and I am still learning from academic stalwarts like Prof. Manish R. Mundada on how to build great institutions and serve students irrespective of designation and restrictions. The same principle we follow at our institute is that student-centric policies give students a mile ahead in competition through holistic empowerment and skill development. Students should also keep a wider horizon where they are multidisciplinary in approach to be high on agility.