Research Councils UK in India

1. Research Councils UK in India Dr Sophie Laurie RCUK Strategy Unit International

2. Who are the Research Councils? • Main public investors in fundamental research in the UK • Public funding mainly via the Science Budget: around £3 billion per annum to the Research Councils over 2008-11 • Non-Departmental Public Bodies established by Royal Charter • Accountable to Parliament, via the Department of Innovation, Universities and Skills

3. The Research Councils

4. The Research Councils • Support world class research in an international context • Raise UK profile and competitiveness by engaging the ‘best with the best’ • Facilitate access to funding sources and facilities • Deliver responsibility on major global issues

5. Specific missions - common objectives • Support basic, strategic and applied research • Support postgraduate training • Advance knowledge and technology and provide services and trained people that lead to social, cultural and economic impact • Promote science in society

6. What is Research Councils UK? • The name for the Research Councils working together • Increases the collective visibility, leadership and policy influence of the Research Councils • Provides a single focus for collective dialogue with stakeholders • Ensures greater harmonisation of operational and administrative functions across the Councils

7. Promoting partnerships • Academic partnerships • Wealth of RC schemes including Science Bridges. • Funding partnerships • Strategic and bottom up • Facility sharing • New RCUK Offices in China, US and India have important role

8. Influencing Global policy agenda Key ambition of RCUK • Improve UK profile overseas • Increase collective visibility of Research councils in global research environment • Strategic input co-ordinated from UK • RCUK Overseas offices give unique perspective in country

9. Six programmes involving three or more Councils • Energy • Living With Environmental Change • Global Uncertainties: Security For All in a Changing World • Ageing: Life-Long Health and Wellbeing • Digital Economy • Nanotechnology through engineering to application

10. Opportunities in India Average economic growth 8% since 2003 Three fold increase in R&D spend in the last decade Enormous expansion plans for the HE system - 45 million graduate population English-speaking Non-resident Indians (>20m) - largest ethnic minority group in UK Key drivers of Indian innovation Great desire to collaborate – research funders have cash

11. Some challenges……. People Aged 60 Years and Over (in Million)

12. Funding opportunities/challenges Plan Outlay for ICMR6-11th Plan periods £525m

13. View from ICMR • Large, diverse population steeped in tradition Ensures that many rarer genetic disorders have survived in India, and this can become the subject matter of valuable research. • Future belongs to bio-informatics India, with its strong IT base, can take a lead in research areas which require strong software inputs. • India is already a huge and fast growing market for pharmaceuticals New drug discoveries are generally assured of good commercial returns.

14. View from ICMR • Huge and diverse clinical material for research Gives India a unique opportunity to turn an acknowledged disadvantage into a research advantage • Has a strong claim to being an appropriate site for clinical trials As the companies seek to conduct global trials, contract research organizations in India are ideally placed to take advantage of this opportunity. • India has a rich and unmatched heritage of traditional systems of medicine This can provide leads for new discoveries for the treatment of many apparently incurable chronic ailments

15. Reality in India More people suffering from hunger (over 200 million) - than any other country in the world (2008 Global Hunger Index) One in five Indian children are malnourished 80% population live on less than $2 per day Less than 50% of females are literate Working mutually and building a reciprocal relationship

17. Great opportunity and potential – understanding required To make it easier for the UK and India to develop high quality, high impact research partnerships… The RCUK Office in India • INFLUENCE: • develop positive, sustainable and influential relationships with key stakeholders • EXCELLENCE: • support the facilitation of high quality UK-India research collaborations • IMPACT: • build profile of the Office to influence policy & deliver valuable, high impact outputs

18. Ambitions • Facilitating long term truly reciprocal activities across the range from workshops to large scale funded initiatives. • Working in partnership with others in India – both academic and non-academic. • Working strategically with Research Councils and others in the UK

19. Current Activities • Collaborating with the Indian DST on joint peer review and funding • Science Bridges (top down) • Next Generation Network initiatives (bottom up) • Working with the Indian Council for Social Science Research in workshops to discuss social science priorities e.g. • last month - Climate Change with keynote from Nick Stern • this week – Economic Restructuring, Higher Education & Social Inequalities

20. Upcoming activities and future priorities • Joint investment (£5 M each side) with the DST on Solar Energy • Global Initiative on non-communicable diseases with the Indian Council for Medical Research • Focus areas; • Digital Economy (creative industries and development) • Security (food and water)

21. Working in partnership S & I Network Climate Change and Energy Economics Section

22. The RCUK Office in India Alicia Greated Sukanya Kumar Sinha Naomi Beaumont