Boost for Australia-India science collaboration

Australian and Indian research projects on agriculture productivity, food security and developing clean energy technologies are among those that will benefit from a 5.6 million dollar boost to the Australia-India Strategic Research Fund (AISRF).

Australia's Foreign Minister, Julie Bishop, and the Minister for Industry, Innovation and Sciences, Christopher Pyne, today announced six new grants in the latest tranche of AISRF funding.

In addition to Australian funds, the Indian Government and research and industry partners will contribute approximately $10 million to the six projects.

Australia's acting High Commissioner in India Chris Elstoft said Australia and India were strong partners in science and research collaboration - a priority area for both countries.

"The new grants will help strengthen the existing links between institutions in our two countries," he said.

"Since 2006, when the AISRF was set up, it has supported over 240 projects, workshops and fellowships in key areas of priority to both nations, involving around 100 top universities and research institutions," he added.

Australian and Indian recipients of the grants, and their projects include:

•Improving chickpea adaptation to environmental challenges (South Australian Research and Development Institute and International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics).

•Large scale, high stability, high energy density batteries (Deakin University and the Indian Institute of Science).

•Biotechnology-based decision-making tools in post-harvest grain pest management (Department of Agriculture and Fisheries, Queensland and Tamil Nadu Agricultural University).

•Enhanced unconventional gas production (University of New South Wales and The Energy and Resources Institute).

•Genetic control and genomic selection in sugarcane (Sugar Research Australia Limited and the Sugarcane Breeding Institute).

•Developing salt tolerant rice (University of Tasmania and the M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation).

The AISRF helps researchers from public and private sectors in both countries to participate in leading-edge scientific research projects and workshops.

The AISRF is Australia's largest fund dedicated to bilateral research with any country and is one of India's largest sources of support to international science.