SDG 4: Quality Education

3Public events

UPES hosts festivals, summits, lectures and workshops that bring the public, industry and other institutions onto campus. Most are free; some conferences charge a registration fee.

• Virasat heritage festival. UPES partners with REACH for Dehradun's annual Virasat festival of Indian art, music, dance, craft and cuisine, which ran for 15 days in October 2024. UPES opens its amphitheatres and Multi Activity Centre for year-round events on art, culture and environmental awareness.
• Himalaya Calling 2025. On 10 September 2025 UPES hosted a "Technology for Himalayan Region" session at this global summit, with an open call for researchers, entrepreneurs, industry experts and policy thinkers working on climate resilience, disaster management, clean energy and rural livelihoods.
• IPR for MSMEs and startups. On 3 September 2025 UPES ran a workshop with Startup Uttarakhand and UCOST for policymakers, startups, MSMEs and academics on using intellectual property to grow businesses.
• Public lectures and workshops. Recent sessions include the Prof P. A. Pandya Endowment Lecture with the Indian Physics Association (10 October 2025), an International Workshop on Accelerators with speakers from India, Japan, France, the UK and Thailand, attended by around 70 students, scholars and faculty (19 November 2025), and a book discussion with Prof Gautam Desiraju of IISc on the future of Indian science (21 November 2025).
• Drug Discovery: From Bench to Bedside. On 2 September 2025 the Centre for Inter-disciplinary Research and Innovation held a workshop, open to registered participants with e-certificates, with a keynote by Dr Ram Vishwakarma, CSIR Distinguished Scientist, on early diagnosis, AI in drug development and cancer-focused drug discovery (UPES R&D Newsletter, July–December 2025^[9]).
• International Young Researchers Conclave (IYRC). An annual exhibition and conclave where undergraduate, postgraduate and PhD researchers from other institutions present their work to guests from academia and industry; the 2026 edition was held from 26 to 28 February 2026 (UPES R&D Newsletter, July–December 2025^[9]).
• Udbhav 2025. UPES hosted Level II of Udbhav 2025, the state-level hackathon of the Uttarakhand AI Mission, where innovators from more than 25 institutes across the state presented solutions in AI, IoT, blockchain, robotics and digital governance.
• International Astronomy and Space Olympiad (IASO) 2026. Organised by the UPES Infinity Space Club with the AIAA UPES Student Branch.
• Case Writing and Management Education Summit 2025. A competition and summit where academics and professionals turn real business challenges into teaching cases.
• India HCI 2023. UPES hosted India HCI 2023, the national conference on human–computer interaction, with research tracks including Women in HCI, where students presented work such as a paper on the underreporting of sexual assault in India.
• Research colloquia. Talks such as Dr Fabio Mangraviti's on his book about how Kabir and Tulsidas were reinterpreted in post-independence Hindi literature.
• Sustainability Fair. UPES's Sustainability Cluster hosted Sustainability Fair 3.0, the 5th International Sustainability Conference on Health, Safety, Fire and Environmental Advances (HSFEA-2025), on 9–10 April 2025, with panel discussions, exhibits, workshops and research presentations for policymakers, industry and researchers. Earlier editions drew more than 1,000 participants in 2022 and 1,200 delegates with 283 research presentations in 2023.
• Energy Summit. An annual flagship event of the School of Advanced Engineering since 2022. The 2025 edition hosted the International Conference on Sustainable and Affordable Energy on 11–12 November 2025 in hybrid mode, and Energy Summit 2026 covers renewable energy, storage, smart grids, AI for energy and the social side of the energy transition, with an industrial fair. Participation is open to researchers and faculty from other institutions for a registration fee.
• Chalchitra Film Festival. Launched in 2022 by the School of Liberal Studies and Media, Chalchitra is an annual competitive festival for smartphone filmmaking that welcomes filmmakers from India and abroad, with workshops, screenings and discussions.
• Virasat ke Rang. From 13 to 18 October 2025, UPES hosted evenings of conversation and performance celebrating artisans who carry craft and music traditions forward.
• Astronomy for all. The UPES astronomy group runs a weekly lecture series on astrophysics that is open to all, alongside sky-gazing and night sky observation events with the university's 12-inch telescope. In February 2026 it hosted a National Workshop on Data Science in Astronomy, supported by IUCAA, for students, faculty and early-career researchers from across India.
• UPES Summer School. A seven-day on-campus programme for school students in Grades 9 to 12, with tracks in computer science and AI, aerospace and rocketry, and the humanities.
• Open Day. Prospective students and their families are invited to tour labs, studios and sports facilities, meet alumni and join workshops, most recently on 15–16 May 2026 at both campuses.
• National Space Convention. Renaissance 3.0, a three-day convention run by the UPES Infinity Space Club with the Indian Space Association in May 2023, drew more than 600 students from across India. School and college students joined lectures by leaders from ISRO and the Ministry of Defence, panel discussions, sky observation, astrophotography, an open rocket workshop and drone challenges.
• International Young Researchers' Conclave (IYRC). An annual research exhibition open to scholars, faculty, industry and international delegates, with a registration fee. The next edition runs 26–28 February 2026.

Open to everyone

UPES's commitment to equal access runs through these activities. Its Equality, Diversity and Inclusion policy^[12] commits the university to equal opportunity and to tackling bias and discrimination, and its Anti-Discrimination Committee^[13] acts on discrimination on grounds including gender, caste, religion or belief and disability. The Policy on Inclusion of Students with Disability^[14], aligned with India's Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016, requires campus services, events and activities to be inclusive and accessible, and buildings and facilities to be designed or modified for access. Most public lectures, festivals, outreach programmes and the library's online resources are free, so cost is not a barrier to taking part.