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The Researchers Exchange Programme (RXP) is the British Council’s global initiative aimed at promoting the development of scientific co-operation and contacts between the UK and India
The purpose of the programme is to help early stage researchers with mobility grants to spend time in the UK and India and exchange information, ideas and knowledge and develop networks opening avenues for long term relationships.
To download application and for further details, please follow this link www.britishcouncil.org/science-rxp
The completed applications for India may please be submitted to Raksha Kakar at Raksha.kakar@in.britishcouncil.org
British Council India is developing a programme focused around the scientific issues associated with climate change. So far, major bilateral forums with climate experts and scientists, as well as networking programmes for young climate researchers in both countries have been organised.
Projects in 2006 -07
- Greening events and cities (7 and 8 February)
In 2004 -05, three young scientists networks on climate science and research between premier climate institutions in both the countries were set up. In February 2005, Hadley Centre’s Director Dr. Dave Griggs visited India, to present latest research on climate science to seven key Indian institutions working on climate research. Subsequently, in January 2006, a major bilateral event, the UK-India Workshop and Consultation on Regional Climate Change, Variability, and Impacts: Scientific Perspectives was organised at the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM) Pune. The UK delegation included 16 scientists from 12 well -known institutions. The Indian delegation included 22 scientists from 12 premier institutions. The Workshop provided a forum for frontline scientists from both the countries to identify climate science areas of mutual interest and to develop targeted, collaborative research themes for future collaborations. The workshop took place at the initiative of the Royal Society, Indian Department of Science and Technology, British Council, British High Commission and IITM.
In February 2006, Eminent UK experts - Lord Professor Julian Hunt FRS of University College London and Professor T J Pedley FRS of University of Cambridge- made presentations to Indian professionals in focused seminars on mesoscale process and climate change. UK and British Council’s contribution in developing the climate research capabilities at the IIT were duly acknowledged in the Silver Jubilee edition of IIT Delhi.
This year the focus would be to further strengthen networks between top class climate institutions in UK & India and broaden Climate agenda to include Sustainable Cities, Energy efficiency and Renewable Energy.
British Council’s UK-India Young Scientists’ Networking (Year 2002 to March 05) was a strategic initiative to develop links between outstanding and award winning young scientists,in the field of Biotechnology & Biomedical Research, Environmental Science, Information Technology, Chemistry and Engineering studies, working in premier national institutions in both countries. The programme, in a small way, arranged exchanges of young UK scientists visiting labs of their Indian counterparts and vice versa, thus helped in building awareness of the contemporary science amongst young professionals in both the countries.
This year our focus will be on developing an initiative around ‘Idea to Innovation’ targeted at young researchers working on novel ideas in biotech / biomedical research, who desire to be budding entrepreneurs in future, translating ideas into innovation. Projects include:
The Royal Society Joint Projects Grant Programme provides funding towards travel and subsistence for two teams or individuals who wish to collaborate on single research collaboration. Applications may build on existing collaborations. All Joint Project grant programmes run for up to three years. Teams or individuals should be based in the UK and in India.
Some of the approved Joint Research Projects in 2006 are listed below:
- Magneto-structural phase transition in functional magnetic materials
A project on Physics & Astronomy: Physics Experimental
UK Partner: Department of Physics, Imperial College London, Prof. Lesley Cohen
Indian Partner: Centre for Advanced Technology, Indore, Dr Sindhunil Roy
Project Aim:
- To couple the Imperial College characterization tools and analysis together with the facilities and materials produced in CAT, Indore to learn how to engineer the shape of the M-H loop, manipulate the critical magnetic fields, their temperature dependencies, and the magnetic anisotropy in the room temperature and so the technologically relevant magnetic shape memory alloys, giant magneto caloric and magnetio resistive compounds by studying well characterized bulk materials as a function of composition and growth parameters.
- Positron scattering from molecules at low energies using R-matrix method
A project on Physics & Astronomy: Physics Theoretical
UK Partner: Department of Physics & Astronomy, University College London, Prof. Jonathan Tennyson
Indian Partner: Department of Physics & Astrophysics, University of Delhi, Prof. Kasturi Baluja
Project Aim:
- Develop a code for calculating Z effective for positron annihilation within the UK R-matrix codes.
- Apply this code to positron collisions as function of energy for various small 7 medium sizes molecules.
- The UCl side will implement explicitly correlated positron - electron wave functions within the code.
- Test this model for the molecules studied.
Archive projects 2005
- Heterogeneous catalyst for activation of small organic molecules (Chemistry)
Partners: Royal Institution, UK and National Chemical Laboratory, Pune (CSIR laboratory)
UK Co-ordinator: Professor G Sankar
Indian Co-ordinator: Dr Manikandan
- Coronal holes and the fast wind: new opportunities with Solar B (Astrophysics)
Partners: Armagh Observatory, Northern Ireland and Indian Institute of Astrophysics, Bangalore (DST laboratory)
UK Co-ordinator: Professor John Doyle
Indian Co-ordinator: Dr Dipankar Banerjee
- Multiple-quantum 170 NMR in solids (Physical and Inorganic Chemistry)
Partners: School of Chemistry, University of Southampton, UK and Department of Chemical Sciences, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai
UK Co-ordinator: Professor Malcolm Levitt
Indian Co-ordinator: Dr P Madhu
- Control of quantum state distributions arising from photo-dissociation processes (Theoretical Chemistry)
Partners: Department of Chemistry, University of Bristol, UK and Department of Chemistry, Punjab University and International Institute of Information Technology, Hyderabad
UK Co-ordinator: Professor Gabriel Balint-Kurti
Indian Co-ordinator: Professor Harjinder Singh
- Molecular mechanism of cold adaptation in Synechocystis PCC6803 (Molecular Biology)
Partners: Department of Biological and Biomedical Sciences, University of Durham, UK and School of Life Sciences, University of Hyderabad
UK Co-ordinator: Professor Antoni Slabas
Indian Co-ordinator: Dr Prakash Jogadhenu
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