A delegation of University of California faculty members and administrators led by President Robert C. Dynes will embark this week on a high-level visit to India aimed at dramatically strengthening research and educational collaborations between California and India.
The week-long visit to New Delhi, Bangalore, and Mumbai beginning Feb. 17 will bring UC researchers together with leaders from some of India’s top academic, governmental, and industrial institutions to discuss how California and India can collaborate to develop solutions to common pressing challenges in science, technology, health, and economic development.
Joining Dynes on the visit will be representatives of the UC-based California Institutes for Science and Innovation, UC’s Global Health Sciences initiative, UC agriculture faculty, and UC external relations staff. The delegation will meet with Indian President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, the Indian minister of science and technology, representatives of technology companies in India, leaders of several Indian research and education institutes, and Indian public health advocates.
“Most of the challenges facing our world today are not confined within the borders of any one state or country,” Dynes said. “Solving the big challenges affecting our world – and sustaining a position of leadership in the global economy – requires reaching beyond geographic borders to form partnerships with the brightest minds in every field, wherever they are.
“The University of California has a rich history of interactions with India. Our faculty have pursued a range of research collaborations with Indian colleagues. Very talented students and scholars have come to UC from India to pursue their work, and they have made important contributions to research and economic development both in California and India. Now, we want to take these interactions to the next level – focusing our research collaborations more strategically on a defined set of problems, involving more students, and assisting each other in targeting our joint research to deliver results to communities in both California and India.”
UC also has an estimated 800 alumni in India, and Dynes will hold unprecedented all-UC alumni receptions in each of the three cities to discuss California-India collaborations.
The India initiative is part of a broader UC strategy to strengthen research and education collaborations between California and international partners. The University also has been developing strategic partnerships with academic institutions in China, Canada, and Mexico – in addition to the countless research collaborations that individual UC faculty have initiated around the world, and in addition to the Education Abroad Program that offers UC students the opportunity to study at one of 150 partner institutions in more than 30 countries across the globe.
“The UC-India Initiative puts forward an exciting model for integrating multinational research, education, and economic development, leveraging the unique strengths of the UC system with those of a consortium of leading Indian scientific institutions,” said Gretchen Kalonji, UC director of international strategy development. “Our goal is to strategically focus our research collaborations, integrating that research with curriculum development and expanded exchange of students and faculty. By bringing together some of the leading minds of California and India to focus on a defined set of challenges common to both societies, we can make a more powerful contribution to innovation, health, and economic development in both places.”
The UC-India Initiative will focus initially on research challenges in the areas of human health, energy, agriculture, and applications of information technology to rural economic development. During the delegation’s visit, UC and Indian researchers will further develop their joint research agenda at a symposium focusing on research topics ranging from tuberculosis to cybersecurity to nanotechnologies for energy to agricultural biotechnologies.
Another meeting will focus on opportunities for UC-India collaboration as India pursues transformations in its own higher education system.
“Using information technology to dramatically improve education at all levels is a critical part of this initiative,” said UC Berkeley Professor Shankar Sastry, a member of the delegation and director of the Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society (CITRIS), one of the four UC-based California Institutes for Science and Innovation. “Our very strong desire at CITRIS to have an impact on the process of innovation and to bring new technology to bear on societal-scale needs is perfectly in line with our mutual goals. The possibility of joint research projects, with impact in California and India, and greatly enhanced student and faculty exchanges through the UC-India Initiative will help build a technical workforce in both California and India that is capable of working effectively across national borders.”
“Our strategy – of moving beyond existing collaborations in which individual UC professors work with individual Indian counterparts, to one in which Indian and UC researchers work in cross-disciplinary teams to address large-scale challenges such as finding new therapies for tuberculosis – is a model we have been aggressively developing at UC and which holds great promise for our international partnerships,” added delegation member Douglas Crawford, who serves as associate executive director of the California Institute for Quantitative Biomedical Research (QB3), another of the California Institutes for Science and Innovation. “A large number of UC investigators are dedicated to finding innovative approaches to treating neglected diseases including TB and malaria, and a partnership with research institutes in India offers the promise of accelerating the path from discovery to improved health for millions of people.”
UC is developing its India partnership in collaboration with Indian governmental partners, including the Department of Science and Technology, the Department of Biotechnology, and the Science and Engineering Research Council; the Indo-US Science and Technology Forum, an autonomous, non-governmental society that promotes Indo-US bilateral collaborations in science and technology; and individual research and education institutions in India. During the trip to India, President Dynes will be exploring expanding the community of collaborators to include additional industrial, academic, and governmental partners.
Below is a list of UC participants on various portions of the India trip. Not all participants are traveling on all portions of the trip.
President Robert C. Dynes Professor Douglas Cook, UC Davis, Department of Plant Pathology Dr. Douglas Crawford, UCSF, associate executive director of the California Institute for Quantitative Biomedical Research (QB3) Bruce Darling, UC executive vice president for university affairs Professor Haile Debas, UCSF, director of Global Health Sciences Professor Gretchen Kalonji, UC director of international strategy development Dr. Anuradha Luther Maitra, president, UC Santa Cruz Foundation Professor Arun Majumdar, UC Berkeley, director of the Berkeley Nanosciences and Nanoengineering Institute Professor Ronald Mitsuyasu, UCLA, Center for Clinical AIDS Research and Education Ann Parode, UC San Diego, fiancée of President Dynes (travel paid by personal funds) Professor Ramesh Rao, UC San Diego, director, San Diego division, California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology (Calit2) Professor Shankar Sastry, UC Berkeley, director of the Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society (CITRIS) James Stofan, UC executive director of alumni affairs, special events and protocol Srinivas Sukumar, UC San Diego, manager of the US-Indo Initiative, Calit2# # #