Back to Thiruvananthapuram

I recently visited the City of Thiruvananthapuram in Kerala with my colleague Sam Kumar from the British Deputy High Commission in Chennai.  Our aim was to see how the city has grown as a hotspot for research and innovation activity in India.  My predecessor, Dr Tom Wells, visited with the same aim in 2012 – and to support Nesta’s work analysing the changing landscape of Indian research and innovation (‘Our Frugal Future – Lessons from India’s Innovation System’).  So this was a good opportunity to track progress since then and highlight opportunities for future UK-Kerala collaboration.

Sam first visited The Rajiv Gandhi Centre for Biotechnology (RGCB) and met the Director, Prof Radhakrishna Pillai and his colleagues.  RGCB is a premier research institute in India, exclusively doing research in Molecular Biology and Biotechnology.  RGCB is currently looking for UK partners to start Education and Research programmes in Molecular and Clinical diagnostics, Anti-Microbial Resistance/infectious diseases/public health.  I arrived later that evening and met with Prof Achuthsankar Nair, who works at the University of Kerala, and is keen to collaborate with UK institutions in Big data; Bio-informatics and Computerised drug design.We also followed up with the Director of the Bio-medical Technology Wing (BMT), of Sree Chitra Tirunal Institute for Medical Sciences & Technology (SCTIMST), Mr Neelakantan.  We collaborated with BMT for a February workshop on affordable healthcare technologies, which my colleague Sheryl Anchan has written a blog on. BMT Wing has been developing and commercializing technologies of a number of devices such as a membrane oxygenator and artificial heart valve.  BMT is taking this a step further by launching its Technology Business Incubator exclusively for Medical Devices and Biomaterials.  During our meeting we discussed partnering opportunities, particularly with universities back in the UK.

We had the chance to discuss the bigger policy picture during our meeting with the Chairman of the State Innovation Council Mr Radhakrishnan followed by a meeting with Dr Suresh Das, Principal Secretary of The Kerala State Council for Science, Technology and Environment (KSCSTE).  Dr Das and his team gave a short presentation on the scope of activity (from Botany, Forests, Water Resource Development, etc) and the broader interest in the UK’s innovation system, especially catapult centres.

As an example of Kerala’s current set-up we visited Technopark.  Its CEO Dr Girish Babu explained how they host over 330 IT and ITES companies employing over 47,000 IT professionals. It was interesting to know that over seven UK companies are located in Technopark, which will play an important role in Kerala’s future ambitions.

If you’re interested to find out more please contact us.