NORHED II Project – Capacity Building in Higher Education within Rock and Tunnel Engineering in Nepal

Brief Introduction

NORHED II Project 70141 6; Capacity Building in Higher Education within Rock and Tunnel Engineering in Nepal is a collaboration project between Paschimanchal Campus, Institute of Engineering (IoE-WRC), Tribhuvan University (TU) of Nepal and Department of Geoscience and Petroleum (IGP), Faculty of Engineering (IV) of NTNU. The project is funded by the Norwegian Government through NORAD. The total budget of the project is slightly over 17 MNOK and IGP is the partner in the North and is responsible in the total management of this project. On the other hand, IoE-WRC is the south partner and is responsible in implementing activities assigned in Nepal. The project activities are managed by the project management team and approved by the steering committee meetings held annually.  

The project has 6 years period from January 2021 to December 2026. This collaboration project focuses on the implementation of MSc and PhD programs at the Institute of Engineering (IoE) of the Tribhuvan University (TU) in Nepal and at IGP-NTNU through production of MSc fellows and capacity enhancement of faculties within “Rock and tunnel engineering” at Paschimanchal Campus of IoE (IoE-WRC) located in the city of Pokhara.

Objectives of the Project

Following are the main aims and objectives of the project.

1. Establish / strengthen MSc and PhD program within Rock and Tunnel Engineering
2. Capacity buildup of IoE-WRC faculties/staff through PhD research and training
3. Establish rock engineering laboratory for the enhancement of education and research
4. Provide teaching help from IGP in order to implement the MSc program
5. Establish solid base for future sustainability of the MSc program
6. Establish solid base for student exchange and future research collaboration

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Steering committee meeting of 2022

The first kick-off meeting of the project was held on 5^th October 2021 which constituted a steering committee for the project. The first steering committee meeting was held on 15^th June 2022 where review and approval of the meeting minutes of the kick-off meeting, achieved progress during the year 2021 and projected plan of activities for the year 2022 were made. On the same day a meeting was held between the Dean of Engineering Faculty (IV) of NTNU and Dean of Institute of Engineering (IoE).

In addition, on 21^st June a meeting was held between Dean of IoE, NORHED II Project team and the officials at the International office of NTNU.

Student mobility of 2022

This project aims to invite second year students of MSc program in Rock and Tunnel Engineering that started in 2020 at IoE-WRC with the help of IGP-NTNU. The first batch of 20 MSc students visited Norway with IoE Dean. The aim of the visit by the students is to observe and learn on how Norway builds tunnels and underground caverns, rock cut slopes and mining projects on a very cost effective and sustainable way. Such learning provides students an opportunity to learn about the capacity a rock mass can have, visualize on the rock support that is needed to strengthen the self-supporting capacity of the rock mass at each rock engineering project, tunnels, underground caverns and cut slopes.

In the following selected photos of the visit by MSc second year students are given.