Europe acting together to promote research and innovation cooperation in India

Awareness Raising and Information Campaign in India – 9 January to 31 March 2014

Last week I was at the Indian Institute of Technology – Delhi (IIT-D) to represent the UK at the first event of the European Roadshow 2014 Research, Innovation & Higher Education. The UK shares strong linkages with the IIT-D and it is always a pleasure to be there. Before I jump into the details on the EU road show, let me tell you more about the IIT-Delhi linkages with the UK.

Imperial College, London started its connection with IIT Delhi in the 1950s, when Professor Sir Willis Jackson, who was Professor of Electrical Engineering here, was Chair of the Technology Committee of the Delhi College of Technology, which was established by the British government. In February 1964, the then Rector, Sir Patrick Linstead, travelled to Delhi to present the institute’s founding director, Dr Dogra, with a charter celebrating the formal partnership between our two institutions. This partnership took several forms. For example, the founding Head of the Mechanical Engineering Department in Delhi was Imperial’s Professor Peter Moore – on a five-year secondment – while many College staff visited for shorter periods to lecture to students and give seminars on their research. Conversely, many IIT Delhi staff visited London to work and study at Imperial.

The relationship between IIT Delhi and Imperial continued through the 1960s and 70s and into the 1980s, with both governments stepping back a little and a joint IIT Delhi-Imperial Committee set up to oversee collaborative activities.

Co-incidentally Sir Keith O’Nions, the President and Rector of Imperial College London was also in India last week. He was the Guest of Honour at Innovation 2014 held on 8th Feb in Kolkata.  More about that event in another blog post by my colleague Manjari Chakravorty.

Coming back to the EU Roadshow, the European Union and its Member States are jointly organising information seminars throughout India for Indian research and innovation (R&I) community about EU-India co-operation opportunities in R&I and higher education. This will include mobility schemes open to the Indian students and researchers. This is the third series of the roadshow around India.

Speakers from Delegation of the European Union to India, European Member States R&I Counsellors and representatives of their research organisations, industry, the European Research Council, Euraxess-Links India and the European Business and Technology Centre, and more, will make presentations in 16 cities across India.

I represented the UK at the first event of the series that was held at the IIT-D on 9th Feb. Dr Suneet Tuli, Dean, IIT-D opened the event and welcomed all the speakers and the delegates before Denis Dambois, Counsellor for Research & Innovation, from the EU Delegation to India presented an outline of the EU Roadshow and the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Framework Programme.

I spoke about the UK-India Research relationship and the funding opportunities for the researchers in both the countries. Those who are new to our blog, each month, we collect together all of the funding opportunities available to support UK-India research and innovation collaboration for you. Here is the December 2013 edition!

The presentations were followed by a Q&A session where researchers and post-docs from IIT-D inquired about the funding routes and mechanisms. If you are interested to work with the EU, I strongly recommend that you attend one of the upcoming EU events closer to your city. Participation is free-of-charge but registration is required. Register here.