Newton-Bhabha Fund announced by UK and India
India and United Kingdom (UK) have announced a “Newton-Bhabha Fund programme” to scale up their bilateral research & innovation relationship to a greater level. This new initiative was announced during a meeting between Union Minister for Science and Technology Dr. Harsh Vardhan and the UK Minister for Universities, Science and Cities Greg Clark, who co-chaired the 4th UK-India Science and Innovation Council (SIC) held at new Delhi.
The Newton-Bhabha Fund is a programme which aims to build up strong interdisciplinary dimension that will further strategise the science, research and innovation cooperation between the UK and India. For this programme UK will provide 50 million pounds over 5 year’s period and India will provide similar matched efforts.
Key Features: Newton-Bhabha programme
- Joint PhD student mobility programme: It aims to pave the way for the next generation of researchers in the UK and India to interact with each other and build long-term R&D linkages and collaborations. This mobility programme will be administered by British Council India and the Department of Science and Technology. It will start from March 2015 to sponsor UK and Indian PhD students to spend a period of their study (3 to 6 months) in Premier Indian and UK higher education institutions.
- New research projects in Mental Health and Substance Abuse: These new projects will be joint initiative of Medical Research Council (MRC) of UK and Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR). ICMR will fund the Indian component for this project while UK will provide up to 2 million pounds.
- Setting up Centres for research in Renewable Energy: These centres will be jointly co-funded by RCUK Energy programme and Department of Science and Technology (DST) of India. UK and the Department of Science & Technology of India will provide support to business-led research and development aimed at tackling societal challenges.
- Centre Partnerships in Cancer Biology, Translational Regenerative Medicines in Neuroscience and Antimicrobial Resistance: It will be funded jointly up to 7 million pounds by Medical Research Council (MRC) of UK and Department of Biotechnology (DBT), India.
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Month: Current Affairs - November, 2014