New Delhi: When Subhasish Acharya walks into a classroom at The Northcap University’s School of Business in Gurugram, he is not carrying just lecture slides. He brings with him nearly three decades of experience in banking, insurance and financial services—stories of what really goes on inside boardrooms, bank branches and on balance sheets.
He is a Professor of Practice (PoP), a growing group of industry veterans entering Indian universities as part of a relatively new government policy designed to bridge the long-standing gap between academic theory and real-world practice.
“The intention is always to ensure that students are exposed to how things actually work in the real world, and not just how they are explained in textbooks,” says Acharya.
The list of renowned professionals joining as PoPs is growing steadily.
In November last year, former Supreme Court judge Abhay Oka joined SVKM Pravin Gandhi College of Law, Mumbai, as an Honorary Professor of Practice. And just last month, former Director General of the National Investigation Agency, Dinkar Gupta, joined IIT-Ropar as PoP, bringing decades of experience in policing, internal security and national security to mentor students and collaborate on research.
The PoP scheme has generated significant curiosity across the higher education ecosystem in India, with over 18,300 professionals and 530 higher education institutions registered on the University Grants Commission’s (UGC) PoP portal, reflecting strong interest from both experienced practitioners and universities in bringing real-world expertise into teaching and research.
Here’s a closer look at the scheme, how it works, and the impact it is having on Indian higher education.
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A look at PoP scheme
Although the concept of PoPs was widely adopted in the US in the late 1990s, with universities like Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harvard and Yale appointing industry professionals to academia, Indian institutes began experimenting with the model only between 2018 and 2019.
The UGC—higher education regulator of India— formalised the same in 2022 by introducing the PoP scheme in September that year, creating a new category of positions that brings distinguished professionals and industry experts into higher education institutions. The move was in line with the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020, which envisions integrating vocational education with general education and bridging the industry-academia gap.
The scheme enables professionals from fields such as engineering, management, commerce, social sciences, media, literature, fine arts, civil services, armed forces, law and public administration to share real-world experience in classrooms. A professor of practice is engaged for a fixed term, initially up to one year, without the role affecting sanctioned faculty positions or regular recruitment.
Extensions—based on the higher education institution’s assessment of contribution and need—may be granted, with total service not exceeding three years normally or four years in exceptional cases. Funding for these positions may come from industry partnerships, the higher education institute’s own resources or on an honorary basis, with remuneration decided accordingly.
According to former UGC chairperson M. Jagadesh Kumar, under whom the policy was formulated and implemented, a long-standing challenge in Indian higher education has been the weak connection between classroom learning and real workplace practice.
“The PoP scheme is designed to bring professionals with deep practical experience into universities, so students not only learn theory but also understand how it applies in real-world contexts. It helps students see the connection between classroom knowledge and actual industry practice,” he says.
“By mentoring students, advising on course design, and sharing insights from their professional journey, these experts strengthen the quality and relevance of higher education.”
Senior UGC officials said that more than 1,000 PoPs are currently engaged across universities, colleges, and other higher education institutes, reflecting growing institutional interest in the roles.
Apart from PoPs, the UGC allows universities to hire professionals under other provisions, such as adjunct faculty for specialised courses, guest faculty for short-term teaching support and visiting faculty for temporary collaborations.
Explaining the difference between the various posts, Kumar says: “PoPs bring practical, real-world experience and mentor students. Adjunct faculty focus on specific subjects and lectures, while guest faculty are short-term hires, usually paid per lecture.”
The adjunct professor post was allowed by the UGC in 2015.
Adjunct and guest faculty often includes some well-known names. For instance, Priyanka Chaturvedi, Rajya Sabha MP from the Shiv Sena (UBT), is set to join OP Jindal Global University as an adjunct professor. She will teach a course on impact of online platforms on society once a week in the upcoming semester.
Speaking to ThePrint, she says: “The opportunity will allow me to engage directly with the youth, share my experiences in the digital space and guide students on navigating the impact of social platforms on society.”
Bridging the gap
Across universities, PoPs are reshaping classrooms by bringing lived professional experience into academic spaces that have long been dominated by theory.
For instance, former civil servant Rajendra Prasad Gupta, who was PoP at Pune’s Gokhale Institute of Politics and Economics, says his role extended well beyond conventional teaching.
“My contribution as a PoP broadly fell into four areas—teaching, building collaborations, using my professional network to bring practitioners into the classroom and working informally with the leadership on systemic improvements within the institution,” he says.
With nearly two-and-a-half decades in public service, Gupta relied heavily on real administrative experiences while teaching a course on public policy, planning and implementation.
“These were not hypothetical case studies for me—I had actually implemented these systems, and that made classroom discussions richer and more meaningful,” he adds.
Gupta often recreated real policy environments inside the classroom, he said. While discussing district-level governance or last-mile delivery, he invited officers who had served as district magistrates to interact with students.
“That kind of interaction brings credibility and grounded understanding that textbooks simply cannot provide,” he asserts.
In management education too, PoPs are helping students decode what professional life entails. Acharya at The Northcap University’s School of Business draws on nearly three decades in banking, insurance, and financial services to give students a realistic picture of industry roles. He has been teaching financial management and Indian financial systems.
“Students are eager to understand what professional life actually looks like—how decisions are made, what pressures exist and what skills really matter at the workplace,” he says.
Having worked across multiple segments of the financial services sector, Acharya uses classroom discussions to explain how roles differ across banking, insurance, and wealth management, and how career paths evolve over time.
“Because of my industry exposure, I can bring practical perspectives on expectations, work culture, and career realities that students would otherwise encounter only after entering the workforce,” he notes.
He also regularly connects students with industry professionals he has worked with, allowing them to hear directly from practitioners about day-to-day work and long-term career choices.
Some universities are now expanding the role of PoPs beyond teaching and mentoring.
At GITAM University, PoPs are being engaged in teaching, research and academic leadership. K.N.S. Acharya, who brings over two decades of experience in the automotive and mechanical sectors, was appointed pro vice-chancellor of GITAM University’s Bengaluru campus under the PoP framework.
At OP Jindal Global University, which currently engages more than 35 PoPs, students say the model is helping them not only connect with industry experts but also secure internships and jobs.
“That is the most important benefit of having professionals as professors of practice. I got an internship at a top management firm because of my professor,” says Ankur Sachdeva, a management student, speaking to ThePrint.
IIT-Delhi first-mover
Several years before the UGC formally introduced the PoP framework in September 2022, IIT-Delhi had already begun reimagining how industry experience could be meaningfully embedded within academia.
Around 2018, under then director, professor V. Ramgopal Rao, the institute took the conscious call to induct senior industry professionals into academic roles through structured PoP appointments.
“At the time, we said that 10 percent of the faculty in a department can be professors of practice. These were three-year contract positions, extendable after review. They were not permanent positions, and we were looking for senior people—those with 15 to 20 years of industry experience,” says Rao, now group vice-chancellor at BITS Pilani.
He added that the appointments were designed to complement the existing academic ecosystem rather than replace it.
“They were treated like any regular faculty member for all purposes, including remuneration,” he explains, adding that age was not a constraint and professionals could join even after retirement.
One of those who joined under this early experiment was professor Krishna Sirohi, whose work illustrates how the PoP model translated into tangible outcomes. Sirohi has 33 years of experience in the field of telecommunications (wireline & wireless) and defence communication product designs.
At a research-intensive institution like IIT-Delhi, Sirohi said, the role of a professor of practice was never about routine classroom teaching.
“At Indian Institutes of Technology, professors of practice are not really required to teach in the conventional sense, because the faculty here are already very strong. The real role is to bridge the research translation gap,” he says.
According to Sirohi, he joined the institute with a clear vision of aligning industry implementation with academic research.
“I visualised a model where industry experience works closely with academic research to convert laboratory work into real-world products,” he says. “Over time, we have been able to create a couple of startups that are now feeding back into the institute’s research ecosystem.”
Many PoPs believe there is more room for institutions to fully harness the idea’s potential.
As Gupta, former PoP at Pune’s Gokhale Institute, notes: “Many academic institutions still do not fully understand the benefits of the PoP scheme. With careful planning, the role can go beyond tokenism and truly bridge the gap between industry and academia.”
(Edited by Nida Fatima Siddiqui)