Australia, India partner for innovative science

Leading scientists in India and Australia will receive funding to do cutting-edge research in a wide range of fields, including information and communication technology, vaccines and marine science as part of a joint multi-crore program.

The Australian and Indian Governments will support 15 new collaborative projects and eight joint workshops through the Australia-India Strategic Research Fund (AISRF).

From a total Australian commitment of Rs 365.5 crores (AUD 64 million), the Australian Government has given Rs 28.1 crores (AUD 5.06 million) to these initiatives. The Government of India will fund the Indian teams' participation.

Australia's High Commissioner to India Patrick Suckling, said: "This partnership enables our leading scientists to collaborate on pioneering research. We are supporting a diverse array of work; from using new diving robots to better understand the Indian Ocean, to research on a hybrid canola crop to increase yields - even a project on how to use cloud computing to help with disaster management."

He added: "The AISRF is Australia's largest science fund with any country and one of India's largest sources of support for international science. The substantial scientific outcomes emerging from this program are significant and long-term links between our researchers and our countries' top universities and institutes are growing."

The funding will support several projects, including research on:

Using robotic tools to characterise the Indian Ocean's changing biogeochemistry;

Nanoengineering autoantigens to prevent and treat autoimmunity; and

Modelling environmental change in a warming world for semi-arid landscapes;

Participating institutions in India include the Indian Institute of Science, IIT Bombay, National Institute of Oceanography, Punjab Agricultural University, International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology and Christian Medical College, Vellore. The partner institutions in Australia include the University of New South Wales, The University of Melbourne, The University of Sydney, Macquarie University, Queensland University of Technology, CSIRO and Deakin University.

Other projects supported by the fund are in fields including renewable energy, food and water security, biomedical devices and implants, nanotechnology, bioremediation and astronomy and astrophysics.