The partnership aims to improve education, research and real-world practice through hands-on learning, knowledge creation and capacity building. This partnership will be very beneficial to both the students and professionals and development practitioners. IIM Raipur is a prestigious public management institution and Tata Steel Foundation is the social development division of Tata Steel. TSF operates in various areas such as education, health, livelihood and community development.

The MoU was ceremoniously signed and exchanged by representatives of the two institutions. The signing was done in the presence of Dr Sanjeev Prashar who is the Director-in-Charge of IIM Raipur along with Dr Saroj Pani the Dean of Academics, Dr Navneeth Bhatnagar Area Chair Strategy, Dr Rahul Hiremath, Dr Suneetha S and Dr Sandeep S from the MSI Team. Tata Steel Foundation had Sourav Roy the CEO and Dr Vinayak Kishore the Consultant - Public Policy and Research in attendance.

Under the memorandum, IIM Raipur and Tata Steel Foundation will collaborate on designing courses, immersive learning programs and community engagement initiatives. They will also work together on research projects, knowledge resources and platforms that support the representation of indigenous communities. One of the most important initiatives under the MoU 'Unurum - The Social Immersion Program' will provide IIM Raipur students with an opportunity to engage in direct, grassroots-level development work. The partnership promotes periodic knowledge sharing wherein both institutions get to learn from each other's expertise.

The Tata Steel Foundation has worked with academic institutions like as the Indian School of Business Hyderabad, IIM Ranchi, IIM Raipur and XLRI Jamshedpur over the years.  Such partnerships helped TSF's professionals participate in designing and delivering specialist educational programs and knowledge content on social impact, public policy, management and strategy.

Speaking about the partnership Dr Sanjeev Prashar who is the Director of IIM Raipur said that the partnership will help future leaders make more informed understanding of social realities. He further shared that initiatives of this nature stimulate responsible choice that balances economic objectives with social obligation and helps in building ethical, development-oriented leadership.

According to Sourav Roy the CEO of Tata Steel Foundation the collaboration embodies the commitment to bring social perspectives into leadership and management education. He explained that with both academia-based knowledges combined with ground experiences, there would be effective learning opportunities, quality research as well as leaders who are conversant with social realities. Additionally he explained that the collaboration would foster enhanced impact ecosystems, collective research as well as replication of learning initiatives towards inclusive development.

By this collaboration, IIM Raipur and the Tata Steel Foundation are planning to fill the gap between learning and doing to deal with the societal issues.