The Union Cabinet chaired by the Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi was apprised about signing of a Joint Declaration between the Ministry of Science & Technology and the Federal Ministry of Education and Research of Germany on the extension of the tenure of the Indo-German Science & Technology Centre (IGSTC). The Declaration is for the extension of tenure of the bilateral IGSTC for a period of five years beyond 2017 till 2022. It provides for enhancement of funding allocation from 2 million Euros per year to a maximum of 4 million Euros per year by each side. The committed funding will be based on the principles of activity matching funding for supporting collaborative research partnerships of industrial relevance.
The joint research projects involving academia and industry from both countries will aim towards creation of new scientific knowledge base and the application of research results for technology development and application. This new declaration will enable IGSTC to further enhance, strengthen and improve research and technology cooperation of industrial relevance through cooperation between laboratories, academia and industry of both the countries. IGSTC will support and fund selected R&D projects linking research laboratories and industry (2+2 scheme) from India and Germany and assist in mobilizing resources to carry out collaborative industrial R&D projects.
Background:
The IGSTC was established under an agreement between the two Governments in October 2007 and started operation in 2011. Presently IGSTC is supporting joint industrial R&D projects in areas such as (a) advanced manufacturing (b) biomedical devices & healthcare (c) nanotechnology (d) automobile engineering (e) water sensors (f) clean energy technology and (g) information and computing technology.