1st May 2012 New Delhi, India
Indo-UK Science & Innovation Council
Ministers meet to agree the broad science and innovation agenda for the UK-India relationship and S&IN India invades the UK!
The 3rd Indo-UK Science and Innovation Council took place in London on 18 April 2012. It meant that four of the team were in town to help with the set up, join and follow up on the Council and surrounding events. At the same time we had a delegation of academics and entrepreneurs from Bangalore, with a fifth member of the team. So it was a busy week for S&IN India in the UK!
The Council itself was led by UK Minister for Universities and Science David Willetts and India’s Minister for Science and Technology and Earth Sciences Vilasrao Deshmukh. The Indian minister led a delegation of 16 high level policy makers and academics. The Council sets the broad agenda for UK-India science and innovation collaboration for the next few years but it was also a chance to celebrate all the progress that has been made since the 2nd Council in 2010.
You may not know it, but research is the fastest growing element of the bilateral relationship between the two countries, with jointly funded collaborative research developed between UK Research Councils and their Indian counterparts growing from £1m to around £90m in three years alone.
The day’s announcement of a £10m boost for the largest India-UK ICT research collaboration underlined that the £90m so far is not the end of the story.
The week in London gave the team a chance to reconnect with old colleagues and catch up on other business in the sidelines. Although, after hearing that the UK had seen glorious sunshine throughout March, April seemed unseasonably cold: a bit of a shock flying in from a hot Indian summer!
During the meeting both delegations agreed that over the next couple of years, research collaborations should focus on the big challenges like sustainable energy (including nuclear), food production and food security, water supply and security, health and disease and advanced manufacturing. There should also be a focus on innovation, including social impact and intellectual property, and collaborating on the policy of science and research itself.
This focus, in essence making the most of excellent science, to solve the big problems, make new products and change lives, is great news for the S&IN India team. It brings to life the importance of the amazing stuff we see every day in our roles.
It also gives us licence to work more closely with exciting innovation organisations in the UK such as the Technology Strategy Board (TSB). The TSB will look at a number of opportunities to work more with India and at the meeting they agreed to expand their Entrepreneurs Missions to India. The first such mission will be to Bangalore in the area of web technologies.
The Council also agreed to explore opportunities in a whole variety of other areas, from cyber security or particle physics to young researchers networking and diversity and equality issues in science. You can find more detail in the Record of Discussion and the accompanying press release.
There was a lot of work put into arranging the Council, but now the hard part starts. Putting into practice what was agreed. Watch this space!
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