Indian innovators, grab your chance for a grant from UK’s Innovation Challenge Fund
The UK government on Monday announced the launch of a £3-million Innovation Challenge Fund aimed at scientists in academia and industry tackling acute global challenges such as for example COVID-19 within the UK-India Tech Partnership.
The fund invites tech innovators with connections to the AI-Data cluster in Karnataka and the Future Mobility cluster in Maharashtra to submit research and development proposals for tackling the coronavirus pandemic or which promote a greener planet.
At least 12 grants up to £250,000 are expected to be awarded. Applicants are required to submit their bids by the finish of this month as an academia-industry consortium, ideally with a global member.
“The UK and India have a solid history of research and innovation,” said Sir Philip Barton, the British High Commissioner to India.
“Both COVID-19 and climate change demonstrate that the most urgent challenges are global. Never has there been a larger dependence on academia, business and government to accelerate innovation, and for nations to collaborate to save lives and build a better future,” he said.
The UK government said the latest initiative builds on the commitment created by Indian and British prime ministers to gather the very best minds from both countries under the UK-India Tech Partnership, to provide high-skilled jobs and monetary growth as well concerning collaborate on a number of the world’s biggest challenges.
“This fund aims to get behind the innovation heroes, if they are working to fight the virus or the sustained looming global threat: climate change. We are proud to work with India, as twin world leaders in the development and adoption of emerging tech for the benefit for all,” said Karen McLuskie, Head of the UK-India Tech Partnership at the British High Commission in New Delhi.
The UK-India Partnership goes back to April 2018, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi and UK Prime Minister Theresa May clinched the partnership with an try to catalyse innovation and technology involving both countries to handle global challenges.
The grants beneath the new Innovation Challenge Fund are part of a wider initiative beneath the Tech Partnership referred to as “Tech Clusters”, that your UK government believes will support the development of Indian Tech Clusters by breaking down barriers to growth, including building international links. The intent is to capitalise on regional and sectoral strengths so as to drive innovation-led inclusive growth.
The Karnataka Artificial Intelligence (AI) Data Science Tech Cluster focussed grants will promote close scientific collaboration between industry and academia, and also promote links with international counterparts and centres of excellence, including in the united kingdom.
Healthcare, with a focus on projects addressing COVID-19 diagnosis; essential equipment or medicine supply lines, infectious disease containment and sanitation, or health data collection; and med-tech that may build healthcare capacity on the whole forms a key facet of this strand. Besides, environmental protection, water management, agriculture and energy are among a number of the other focus areas.
Beneath the Future Mobility strand, the grants are directed at the development of the Maharashtra Future Mobility Tech Cluster and cover areas such as safety and convenience, technology leap, connectivity, energy transition and smart mobility.
Proposals for research and development projects are invited from consortia made up of researchers and industry from India, and international counterparts, like the UK.
Projects must be led by an Indian not-for-profit organisation and may either develop original ideas or adapt successful technologies, techniques or processes from other fields and the deadline to submit two-page concept notes is August 31.
