The University Grants Commission on Tuesday constituted a four-member Empowered Expert Committee (EEC), which is being entrusted to conduct the appraisal of applications for shortlisting 20 Institutions of Eminence (IoE).

N Gopalaswami, former chief election commissioner of India is the chairperson of the committee.

The members of the committee are Tarun Khanna, Jorge Paulo Lemman, Professor at Harvard Business School; Pritam Singh, former director of IIM, Lucknow, and MDI, Gurugram; and Renu Khator, chancellor, University of Houston System.

The government is likely to announce the names of the selected institutions by April 2018.

The committee was constituted by the UGC after the approval of the central government, as per the UGC (Institutions of Eminence Deemed to be Universities) Regulation, 2017, and UGC (Declaration of Government Educational Institutions as Institutions of Eminence) Guidelines, 2017.

The government has received 103 applications from public and private higher education institutions.

The deadline for the applications has been extended to February 22. The previous deadline was December 31.

The IoE project for internationalisation of Indian campuses and creating world class universities was rolled out by the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) in September 2017.

By March-April 2018, 20 (10 each from public and private category) institutions will be accorded the status of 'Institutions of Eminence' with a mandate to achieve world class status over a period of 10 years.

As per the guidelines issued by the UGC, those institutions in the top 50 of the National Institute Ranking Framework (NIRF) rankings or those who have secured ranking among top 500 of the Times Higher Education World University Rankings, QS University Rankings or Shanghai Ranking Academic Ranking of World Universities are eligible to apply.

The EEC shall conduct its appraisal based on the document submitted by the applicant as well as any other measure of demonstrated commitment to the cause of developing an Institution of Eminence.

The committee would engage with the institutions to study their proposals and rank the institutions for their suitability for inclusion in this scheme.

The recommendation will then be placed before the UGC which will forward the same to the MHRD within 15 days. The ministry will then issue the orders on selection of institutions.

The institutions declared as Institutions of Eminence will be free from the usual regulatory mechanism to choose their path to become institutions of global repute with emphasis on multi-disciplinary initiatives, high quality research, global best practices and international collaborations.

Unlike the other institutions in the country, these institutions will have the liberty to enrol up to 30 per cent foreign students.

Moreover, selected public institutions will be able to recruit up to 25 per cent foreign faculty, while there will be no such limit for selected private institutions.