Australia to boost collaborative research with India

Australia will deliver 10 million AU dollars (almost $9.20 million) for collaborative research projects with India to tackle pressing challenges in health and energy from the Australia-India Strategic Research Fund (AISRF), a minister announced Friday.

The additional 10 million AU dollars from the AISRF Grand Challenge Fund, to support Australian partners on four new collaborative projects, will build on existing research links and go towards finding solutions to some of our greatest social challenges, Minister for Higher Education Kim Carr said.

The 64 million AU dollars AISRF has supported more than 100 projects and workshops, involving more than 80 leading Australian and Indian universities and research institutions, since it began. The government of India supports Indian teams' participation in these joint projects, reported Xinhua.

Kim Carr, and Indian Minister of Human Resource Development Pallam Raju, met Friday for the annual Australia-India Ministerial Dialogue on Education Cooperation and the second Australia India Education Council (AIEC) meeting.

According to him, the Ministerial Dialogue underscored Australia and India's capabilities and objectives in education and training.

"Australia and India's economies and peoples are among the best placed in our shared region to benefit from opportunities in the Asian century," Kim Carr said.

And Kim Carr and Raju jointly chaired the second meeting of the AIEC, which was formed to advance the Australia-India education relationship across focus areas including student mobility, higher education institutional collaboration and joint research, quality assurance, and skills.

"The council has given strategic direction to our bilateral education and training goals and it is encouraging to see how well the projects under the key focus areas have progressed since the first meeting in August 2011," Kim Carr said.