UK’s Chief Scientific Adviser Prof Robin Grimes visits India

Earlier this week, Prof. Robin Grimes, FCO’s Chief Scientific Adviser visited Mumbai. I accompanied him for meetings at the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE), Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR), Atomic Energy Regulatory Board (AERB), and finally, Larsen & Toubro (L&T). This is what he thought…

My first meeting was with Dr. R K Sinha, Chairman of Atomic Energy Commission and Secretary, DAE. I was delighted that he said straight away the current joint UK-India collaboration in civil nuclear research was by far the most productive international research engagement that DAE have. He clearly valued the publications that are now streaming out from the set of 12 projects that are currently underway under phases 1 and 2. A new set of projects (imaginatively called phase 3) will be announced shortly. Again encouragingly, Dr. Sinha was keen to discuss future topics for phase 4, including health effects of radiation, accident modelling, and engineering systems for heat management. During our discussions, I was pleased to be able to point to the UK statement this year given at the IAEA General Conference, which mentioned this collaboration with India as an example of the research excellence that the UK values.

I was glad that Prof. John Womersley, CEO of the Science and Technology Facilities Council talked about potential collaboration with regard to the Square Kilometer Array (SKA) – an international science and engineering project to build the world’s largest radio telescope. John is the chair of the Board of Directors of the SKA organisation. As a first step towards establishing collaboration, we agreed that a joint UK-India workshop would facilitate the networking of astronomers from both countries.

We then drove to TIFR to meet with Prof. Mustansir Barma, Director of TIFR, and broadly discussed potential collaboration opportunities, researcher mobility, and the upcoming campus in Hyderabad – TIFR Centre for Interdisciplinary Sciences (TCIS). We got into some research interest details and I found common interests, especially concerning how difficult we are all finding modelling the physics of the glass transition. I could go on…but fear not dear reader that’s for another time!

Then, we were off to the AERB offices, located within the campus of the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, to meet with Dr. S S Bajaj, Chairman. AERB and their UK equivalent (Office for Nuclear Regulation) both use the same approach to their work – based on goal setting (many other countries use a prescriptive approach). They are carrying out many interesting studies concerning the removal of decay heat.

The final stop on day 1 was with Larsen & Toubro (known throughout India as L&T) – a technology, engineering, construction, technology, manufacturing and financial services company. We met with the senior management team and discussed a slew of topics including L&T’s collaboration with Rolls Royce, implications of the nuclear liability act in India and carbon price floor in the UK. I talked about the high value manufacturing catapult centres and how L&T might want to explore potential partnership opportunities. I am sure we will continue to hear more about L&T in the UK!

The next day, I met with my collaborators from the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC). We are using atomic scale modelling techniques to predict the behaviour of nuclear materials under extreme conditions (as are routinely experienced in a reactor environment). They will be sending over one of their PhD students to work with my group in the new year. Thereafter, one of the students in my group will work in India. This is just one example of several researcher exchanges that will be happening as we continuously strive to strengthen our research ties.

Then, I said goodbye to Mumbai and flew to New Delhi. You will be hearing more about my meetings in New Delhi from Dr. Rita Sharma in the S&IN team.

(Prof. Robin Grimes)