Higher Education links between India and the UK are very long-standing and rapidly increasing. Both countries have mutually gained from building on these links which have led to benefits like increased knowledge transfer, enhanced research output leading to greater investments and more capacity building.

Innovation Partnerships strand aims to provide opportunities for the UK and Indian Universities and Institutions to collaborate on Thematic Partnerships and collaborations to enhance the Innovation capacity of both India and the UK. The strand will focus towards promoting partnerships between higher education institutions which focus on innovation and new areas of development in research, in areas relevant to both countries. These partnerships would be in all subject areas including Science & Technology and would be supported by University Grants Commission and Department of Science & Technology from India. One of the main outcomes of developing these partnerships would be towards developing more Split Site PhD programmes across India and the UK.

This strand would also encourage and support the development of the ‘Innovation Universities’ and ‘Innovation Centres of Excellence’ which are being envisaged by Government of India. These universities and Centres would emerge as exemplars attracting quality talent, promoting education of the highest standards and conducting cutting-edge research.

The strand will also provide opportunity to promote and initiate multilateral dialogue to establish trilateral partnerships for collaborative research and development activities between the US/UK and India. The strand will also aim to strengthen two-way mobility of UK and Indian doctoral scholars to enhance knowledge sharing between the two countries.

Key Objectives:

• To encourage and support the development of 2 of the 14 ‘Innovation Universities’ in India.
• To encourage the development of sustainable partnerships and collaboration that involves joint research and innovation through Innovation Centre Partnerships.
• To support the development of new, and sustainable, institutional research partnerships between UK and Indian Higher Education Institutions across themes including Science & Technology, Arts & Humanities.
• To establish Tripartite Partnerships between US/UK/India through research collaboration and science and technology partnerships.

 Current Status:
• 1st Call for Bids for Thematic Partnerships already closed.
• 2nd Call for Bids for UGC Thematic Partnerships and DST Thematic Partnerships to be announced soon.