In continuation of the educational partnership between India and the United States, the State Department announced that IU School of Optometry was the recipient of one of the eight institutional partnership projects in the third round of Obama-Singh 21st Century Knowledge Initiative awards. The initiative aims to strengthen collaboration and build partnerships between American and Indian institutions of higher education, with the aim of encouraging mutual understanding, educational reform, and economic growth, as well as the development of junior faculty at Indian and American institutions of higher learning.

Specifically, Associate Professor SP Srinivas, in collaboration with other colleagues from the School of Optometry (Sarita Soni, Joseph Bonanno, Carolyn Begley, and Pete Kollbaum) and doctors at the Vision Research Foundation (Chennai, India; the research wing of Sankara Nethralaya) have received a 3-year grant focusing on the prevention of corneal blindness through enhanced professional education and clinical research projects on Fuchs dystrophy and Keratoconus.