Stating that India's endeavour to set up 14 innovation universities of world-class standard is a Herculean task, president of a US-based university said on Friday that this involves more than money, while union HRD minister Kapil Sibal maintained that its foundation has to be laid now.

"Building a world-class university is far more than a construction project. It is building a community of knowledge, far more than its building campus," Richard C Levin, president of Yale University, said at the FICCI Higher Education Summit, inaugurated by Sibal.

He also said that a world-class varsity is composed of world-class faculty and is a centre for new knowledge. The Yale university president was of the view that a great research university is not built using bricks and mortar of its campus, but by students and scholars, who inhabit it and the ideas they share.

"The university is composed of many things: a distinguished and engaged faculty, broad library and museum collections, state-of-art laboratories and computer resources and a wide range of extra-curricular, cultural and athletic activities, to name a few essential components," he said.

Responding to Levin's views, union HRD Sibal said it takes years for an institute to attain world class standards, but the beginning has to be made now.

"Can we build a world class university by 2020. No. Harvard University was started in 1636. It takes years. But, can we set the foundation for a world class university? Yes," Sibal said.

Levin said that a world class university contributes to the world through research, education and institutional citizenship.

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