Imperial College launches India Connect Fund for joint research

A NEW seed fund aimed at awarding grants for joint projects between scientists in India and the UK has been launched by Imperial College London.

The India Connect Fund, to be formally announced at events in New Delhi and Bengaluru next week, is designed to back projects that have the potential for innovative breakthroughs in scientific discovery.

The fund, covering grants of around £3,500-5,000 for successful project teams, is focused on projects that will benefit areas such as health, climate and sustainability as researchers in India and the UK join forces to tackle shared global challenges.

“India is an incredibly exciting place for research and innovation, and a vital partner for UK scientists – Imperial's researchers have co-authored more than 1,500 research papers in the last five years with our colleagues from almost 400 Indian universities and research institutes,” said professor Ian Walmsley, Provost of Imperial College London, who will formally launch the fund in India.

“Our new India Connect Fund looks to build on these strong ties by enabling the best scientists in India to work even more closely with colleagues at Imperial on cutting-edge research in health, climate and sustainability,” he said.

Imperial College London, a world top 10 university and one of the UK's leading universities for research impact, hopes the new fund will support exploratory research, small-scale experiments or the development of prototypes, workshops and hackathons. It is also aimed at enabling the winning researchers and students to do exchanges to study and work at Imperial and partner institutes in India.

Each project will be led by a principal investigator based at Imperial and one principal investigator based at the partner institution in India.

“Imperial is proud to be home to a growing and thriving community of Indian students, alumni and researchers – with more than 800 Indian students based at our London campus. We also have more than 3,000 Indian alumni around the world who are making significant contributions to society and are a valued part of the Imperial community,” noted Walmsley.

Imperial College London counts India as one of its closest international partners over the years, with current research partners including the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) Bangalore, All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay, IIT Delhi, IIT Kharagpur and the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research.

The university said its scientists are working with academic, industry and government partners across a wide range of shared challenge areas, from developing next generation technologies for clean energy and co-producing policies for antimicrobial pollution, to training the next generation of infectious disease modelers.

Last year the college partnered with the George Institute for Global Health India to launch an ambitious NIHR Centre that is working with communities across India, Indonesia and Bangladesh to tackle challenges at the interface of non-communicable disease and environmental change.

(PTI)