SDG 4: Quality Education

1Research and innovation in learning

UPES studies how people learn and teach, from blended and online learning to AI tutors for learners with disabilities, and trains the next generation of researchers. These figures cover UPES research publications on education and learning (source: Scopus).

What the research covers

Number of education papers on each theme (a paper can appear under more than one).

Most cited education work

1. Blended Learning Tools and Practices: A Comprehensive Analysis^[7] (IEEE Access, 2021), cited 239 times.
2. Closing the divide: Exploring higher education teachers’ perspectives on educational technology^[8] (Information Development, 2026), cited 141 times.
3. Understanding continuous use intention of technology among higher education teachers in emerging economy: evidence from integrated TAM, TPACK, and UTAUT model^[9] (Studies in Higher Education, 2025), cited 105 times.
4. An intelligent tutoring system architecture based on fuzzy neural network (FNN) for special education of learning disabled learners^[10] (Education and Information Technologies, 2022), cited 70 times.
5. “Intelligent Tutoring System in Education for Disabled Learners Using Human–Computer Interaction and Augmented Reality”^[11] (International Journal of Human-Computer Interaction, 2025), cited 55 times.

The full list of publications, with links, is in the annexure.

Training researchers

Research spotlights

Games that teach empathy

Dr Manisha Mohan's PhD, supervised by Dr Naveen Kumar, showed that immersive media and game-based learning can build empathy among nursing professionals in India. It won the UPES PhD Best Thesis Award in 2025.

Pedagogy for well-being and sustainability

Prof Padma Venkat, Dean of the School of Health Sciences and Technology, focuses her current research on new teaching approaches that build wellness and sustainability into university campuses. Her community work includes training rural women and self-help groups in green technologies and safe water, sanitation and hygiene.

Students as researchers

Through the SHODH scheme, students carry out their own research projects under faculty mentors, building towards products, patents and start-ups. From the 2026 intake, UPES also admits students to a PhD straight after their undergraduate degree.

Learning from global educators

In March 2025 Dr Fiona Freeman of Nottingham Trent University spoke at UPES on co-creating highly skilled postgraduates through outcome-focused education. Neuropsychologist Dr Knut Hestad later led a six-session classroom series on depression, HIV-related cognitive deficits, the mind–body interface, and ageing and dementia.

Building research capacity

UPES runs faculty development programmes that keep its teachers and PhD scholars up to date with national research priorities. A recent programme on India's BioE3 policy and the Anusandhan National Research Foundation (ANRF) brought experts, faculty and PhD scholars together on biomanufacturing, the bioeconomy, sustainability and new routes to research funding. In 2024–25, six faculty development programmes on artificial intelligence in health care, open to faculty from across UPES, recorded 842 participations (UPES Annual Report 2024–25^[12]).

Learning with the Himalaya

The Himalayan Institute for Learning and Leadership (HILL) at UPES works on sustainable solutions for the Himalayan region by bringing together academia, research institutions and communities through research, capacity building and knowledge sharing. Its Himalayan Fellowship is an immersive programme that takes students out of the classroom and into mountain communities, using homestays and fieldwork and treating local communities as partners in learning rather than research subjects. HILL also builds skills and livelihood opportunities for women across the region with national and international partners.

Teachers keep learning too. A five-day Faculty Development Programme, Effective Pedagogy: Practice and Policy Alignment, run by the School of Computer Science from 28 July to 1 August 2025 at the Bidholi campus, trained faculty in learner-centred, inclusive and outcome-based teaching.

Patents and intellectual property

In UPES's mapping of its intellectual property to the Sustainable Development Goals, Quality Education is one of the ten goals the portfolio covers (UPES R&D, December 2025).