Newton Fund spearheading UK’s science and innovation partnership with India

Last month I was at the 5th UK-India Science and Innovation Council meeting in London where the UK’s Minister for Science and Universities Jo Johnson welcomed his counterpart from India Dr Harsh Vardhan to jointly assess the collaborations between the two countries in the areas of science and innovation.

Both the ministers met at the palatial Lancaster House located in the heart of London along with their senior policy makers. They were pleased to note the outcomes of the dedication shown by both the countries to establish Newton Bhabha programmes in such a short span of time and taking the UK India relationship to the next higher level. They also recognised that Newton-Bhabha has become the largest bilateral initiative for facilitating research and innovation collaborations between the two countries.

In November 2014, then science ministers of the two countries, Greg Clark and Dr Harsh Vardhan had formally agreed to bring UK India Science and Innovation collaborations under the broader umbrella of Newton-Bhabha for which they had signed a Memorandum of Understanding.

Two years on, over 15 programmes ranging from capacity building, funding research projects to promoting translation of research have been funded jointly. Partnerships range from young researchers doing their PhDs in host countries to fellowships for upcoming leaders in innovation, trainings, workshops, research programmes and initiatives to bridge the gap from research to commercialisation by taking research outputs to the next stage of commercialisation.

Coming back to the recent deliberations at Lancaster House, the two ministers also endorsed the Newton Bhabha strategy which had been agreed by the Newton-Bhabha Steering Group earlier in the day. In setting direction for the future, the two ministers identified big data, advanced manufacturing and oceans as the areas of thrust.

Current opportunities under Newton Bhabha

The currently open call under Newton Bhabha, the PhD Placements programme, provides opportunity for the UK and Indian PhD scholars to spend a period of their study in Indian and UK higher education institutions.

All future calls can be accessed from Newton Fund website site or the funding opportunities published by the Science and Innovation Network which is linked to their monthly newsletter.

Newton Prize

At the end of last month, minister Jo Johnson also announced an annual £1 million Newton Prize to recognise the Newton Fund’s best science or innovation that promotes economic development and social welfare. Each year, five Newton funded research partnerships or teams, each from a different Newton partner country, will be awarded a prize worth £200,000 and can be used towards the future science and innovation of the winning partnership to take their work to the next level.

UK’s Newton Fund

Those of you who have been following the Newton Fund closely since its inception would already know this but for those new to this please read more about the fund on the Newton website.