The latest recipients for a fund supporting excessive influence joint projects between Imperial and high Indian universities and institutes have been chosen.
Ten projects bringing collectively researchers at Imperial and specialists at high Indian establishments will profit from the India Connect Fund – which helps co-created research throughout strategic areas inside Emerging Technologies for Innovation, Climate and Sustainability, and Health.
The fund, now in its third 12 months, was set as much as help exploratory research, small-scale experiments or the event of prototypes, workshops and hackathons. It goals to allow researchers to participate in exchanges to work at Imperial and accomplice institutes in India, constructing on Imperial’s longstanding connections with India.
“The India Connect Fund will play a key role in meeting Imperial’s goals of deepening our scientific and technology relationships with India and strengthening the flow of ideas and talent between our two countries.” Professor Sanjeev Gupta Academic Co-Director for Imperial Global India
This 12 months’s joint projects have a concentrate on interdisciplinary research, bringing specialists collectively to deal with real-world challenges that are related to India, the UK and the remaining of the world.
Earlier this 12 months, Imperial launched Imperial Global India – a brand new hub in Bengaluru which can strengthen scientific, schooling and innovation partnerships between India and the UK.
Professor Sanjeev Gupta, Academic Co-Director for Imperial Global India, mentioned: “It is nice to see this help for such thrilling and modern projects that may have excessive influence on society.
“The India Connect Fund will play a key position in assembly Imperial’s targets of deepening our scientific and expertise relationships with India and strengthening the move of concepts and expertise between our two international locations.
“We were impressed by the range of projects in this year’s applications, from robotics to climate mitigation strategies, which truly highlight the strength of collaborations between Imperial and Indian institutions.”
Imperial – ranked second best university in the world in the latest QS World University rankings – has greater than 3,000 alumni in India and 840 present Indian college students. The college additionally has research collaborations with greater than 400 establishments throughout the nation, with round 2,000 joint research publications during the last 5 years and a rising quantity of business collaborations – resembling Imperial and Tata Steel’s Centre for Innovation in Sustainable Design and Manufacturing.
Nine completely different departments throughout Imperial are represented within the funding round, with researchers from the Faculty of Medicine, Faculty of Engineering, Faculty of Natural Sciences and the Business School co-leading projects.
Unique projects
The India Connect Fund recipients for this 12 months are engaged on research in a various vary of areas, resembling local weather mitigation, digital well being, and nanorobotics.
Some examples of the projects funded are:
- A extremely interdisciplinary collaboration led by Professor Po-Heng Lee (Civil Engineering) and Professor Indajit Chakraborty (IIT Bombay) that makes use of Quantum computing instruments for local weather change adaptation in arid lands.
- Research led by Dr Claudia Contini (Life Sciences) and Professor Ambarish Ghosh (Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru) on engineering magnetically steerable artificial cells which might permit for extra exact management of cells for environmental and biomedical makes use of.
- A collaboration led by Professor Sunitha Pangala (Life Sciences) and Dr Monali Rahalkar (Maharashtra Association of Cultivation of Science, Pune – & NISER) on enhancing our understanding of how bushes can act as a methane sink in ecosystems in Eastern India.
- AI for Healthcare research led by Professor Rafael Calvo (Dyson School of Design Engineering) and Professor Janakarajan Ramkumar (IIT Kanpur) on find out how to develop culturally delicate conversational brokers for healthcare to enhance social integration of South Asian immigrants within the UK healthcare system.
The research projects chosen additionally stretch throughout India, with collaborations happening at establishments resembling IIT Kanpur, the Indian Institute of Science, IIT Bombay, the George Institute for Global Health India, and the National Institute of Science Education and Research (NISER). Each venture shall be led by a principal investigator primarily based at Imperial and a principal investigator primarily based at a accomplice establishment in India.
The full 10 recipients of the India Connect Fund are:
- Professor Rafael Calvo (Dyson School of Design Engineering) and Professor Janakarajan Ramkumar (IIT Kanpur) – ‘Addressing social integration of South Asian immigrants by way of value-sensitive and culturally responsive healthcare conversational brokers’
- Professor Po-Heng Lee (Civil Engineering) and Professor Indajit Chakraborty (IIT Bombay) – ‘Plant–microbe–biochar crosstalk: quantum instruments for local weather adaptation in arid lands’
- Dr Mirabelle Muûls (Business School) and Professor Suryanarayana Doolla (IIT Bombay & MP Ensystems) – ‘Regulatory sandbox on demand flexibility for growing knowledge pushed energy sector reforms in India’
- Professor Sunitha Pangala (Life Sciences) and Dr Monali Rahalkar (Maharashtra Association of Cultivation of Science, Pune – & NISER) – ‘Cultivating methane-removing microbes from bushes: a UK–India partnership for local weather mitigation, ecosystem restoration, and resilience’
- Dr Claudia Contini (Life Sciences) and Professor Ambarish Ghosh (Indian Institute of Science) – ‘Synthetic cells–nanorobots for environmental and biomedical sensing’
- Dr Timothy Rawson (Infectious Disease) and Professor Nusrat Shafiq (Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research, Chandigarh) – ‘Development of a point-of-care, quantitative colistin assay to help real-time therapeutic drug monitoring’
- Dr Adria Junyent Ferre (Electrical and Electronic Engineering) and Professor Rajeev Kumar Singh (IIT (BHU) Varanasi) – ‘Supporting low-voltage distribution techniques utilizing energy electronics’
- Professor Niladri Banerjee (Physics) and Dr Karthik Raman (Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Hyderabad) – ‘Magnetic, superconducting and topological supplies’
- Professor Martina Di Simplicio (Brain Sciences) and Professor Pallab Maulik (George Institute for Global Health India) – ‘Developing a novel cross cultural transient intervention for dysregulated behaviours in younger people who improve threat of psychological problems’
- Professor Julien Vermot (Bioengineering) and Professor Kundan Sengupta (IISER Pune) – ‘Expansion microscopy for nuclear structure visualisation’
Support for worldwide collaborations
The wider Imperial Global Connect Fund is open all 12 months round to purposes from all Imperial workers who need to hook up with India, Singapore, USA and West Africa. The fund offers alternatives for Imperial’s group to determine impactful, long-term collaborations with international companions by way of the college’s worldwide hubs.
The fund helps the Imperial Global community, which has boosted Imperial’s presence in pivotal and rising areas worldwide, fostering relations and establishing deep hyperlinks between the college group and regional companions.
More data on the Imperial Global Connect Fund could be discovered right here: https://www.imperial.ac.uk/about/global/imperial-global-connect-fund/
Main picture credit score: Claudia Contini.