Indo – French Bilateral Cooperation in Science and Technology
Cooperation between India and France in the field of S&T is has been given special emphasis by both governments since the 1980s. The Indo-French Centre for promotion of Advance Research (CEFIPRA) is the nodal framework for promoting bilateral scientific cooperation in fundamental and applied research, frontier technologies and exchange of scientists and post doctoral researchers. The office of CEFIPRA ( www.cefipra.org) has been established in Delhi and the centre is currently funded through and annual corpus of Euro three million with India and France equally contributing Euro 1.5 million each. Over the years CEFIPRA has become the flagship for the promotion of Indo-French scientific cooperation.
The CEFIPRA is headed by Governing Board, Scientific Council and Industrial Research Committee. The next governing boarding meeting of CEFIPRA is scheduled to be held in New Delhi. Since its inception, a strong partnership has been established for collaboration in basic research between Indian and French scientists under CEPIPRA with 306 projects being completed and 67 ongoing projects. The collaboration has led to 1162 research publications in peer reviewed journals and generated 18 patents. A competitive funding mechanism has been established by CEFIPRA through rigorous peer review and selectivity criteria. 406 projects have been funded over the past twenty three years. Industrial research projects have also been taken up since 2002-2003. Two products and two patents have resulted from industrial research collaboration. CEFIPRA completes 25 years in 2012. It is proposed to celebrate the strong partnership established through CEFIPRA with events which will further build on and strengthen the partnership.
(Copyright CEFIPRA)
Indo-French centre for promotion of advance research (above) located at India habitat centre, New Delhi
Medical Research and Public Health
Cooperation in medical research is another important element of Indo-French scientific and technical collaboration, and is undertaken through close collaboration between Indian Council for Medical Research (ICMR)(), India ( Cette adresse email est protégée contre les robots des spammeurs, vous devez activer Javascript pour la voir. ) and Institut Nationale de la Sante et de la Recherche Medicale (INSERM) ( www.inserm.fr ) , France which have a Joint Working Group to promote joint objectives. The 8th meeting of the JWG between ICMR and INSERM was held in Paris on June 21, 2010. Both sides reiterated the importance of collaboration. Seven projects were approved for 2011-2012. During the visit of President Sarkozy to India in December 2010, a Letter of Intent was signed between ICMR and INSERM for establishing an International Associated Laboratory (IAL) to be set up in 2011 in the field of catalytic antibodies.
Copyright INSERM
INSERM (above) & ICMR to set up jointly an international associated laboratory
Biotechnology, Water Technologies, Geological Sciences
Collaboration to develop better water technologies is underway through a variety of joint projects in the form of ‘Indo-French Cell on Water Sciences’ ( www.indofrenchcell.com ) at Bangalore, ‘Indo-French Centre for Ground Water Research’ ( Cette adresse email est protégée contre les robots des spammeurs, vous devez activer Javascript pour la voir. ) at Hyderabad and ‘Indo-French Programme for Research on Weather & Climate’ ( www.nio.org ) at Goa. During the recent visit of French President Nicolas Sarkozy to India in December 2010 an MoU between Institut de Recherche Pour le Development (IRD)( www.ird.fr ) ,France and Indian Institute of Science ( www.iisc.ernet.in ) , Bangalore (India) was signed for setting up an international joint laboratory called the Indo French Cell for Water Sciences.
Since 2008, the Geological Survey of India( www.portal.gsi.gov.in ), and the Bureau de Recherches Geologiques at Minieres ( www.brgm.fr ) have expanded their cooperation on areas of geo-thermal energy, ground water resource management, sub-soil storage of CO2 and geological mapping. Combined research and training of scientists in the fields of biotechnology, bioinformatics, pharmacogenomics and agrarian research (ICAR) ( www.icar.org.in) is separately undertaken between the Department of Biotechnology and laboratories of the Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique (INRA)( www.inra.fr ) . A MoU for promoting collaboration in the area of teaching/research was also signed during the visit of French President to India between Institute of Chemical Technology ( www.iictindia.org ) ((India) and Groupe des Ecoles des Mines ( www.gemtech.fr ) (France).
Applied Sciences
Joint research is continuing through multi-disciplinary projects such as the Indo-French Cell on Water Sciences, Indo-French Cell on Bioprocess for Environment, Indo-French Centre for Organic Synthesis ( www.iisc.ernet.in ) , Indo-French unit on water and waste treatment, Indo-French research programme on weather and climate, Indo-French Laboratory of Solid State Chemistry( www.iisc.ernet.in ), Indo-French Institute of Mathematics ( www.math.iisc.ernet.in ) . Institute of Chemical Technology (ICT) and Group des Ecoles des Mines have also signed an MoU to promote students/faculty exchange and cooperation in joint research programme in areas of mutual interest.
