Research Councils UK in India

Dr Sophie Laurie

RCUK Strategy Unit International

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

The Research Councils

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Some challenges…….

People Aged 60 Years and Over (in Million)

Funding opportunities/challenges

48 150 167330

1023

4500

0

500

1000

1500

2000

2500

3000

3500

4000

4500

6th 7th 8th 9th 10th 11th

Plan

Plan Outlay for ICMR6-11th Plan periods

£525m

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-informaticsIndia, 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 pharmaceuticalsNew drug discoveries are generally assured of good commercial returns.

View from ICMR

• Huge and diverse clinical material for researchGives India a unique opportunity to turn an acknowledged disadvantage into a research advantage

• Has a strong claim to being an appropriate site for clinical trialsAs 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 medicineThis can provide leads for new discoveries for the treatment of many apparently incurable chronic ailments

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

The RCUK Office in India

• Great opportunity and potential – understanding required

• To make it easier for the UK and India to develop high quality, high impact research partnerships…

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

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

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

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)

Working in partnership

S & I Network

Climate Change and EnergyEconomics Section

The RCUK Office in India

Alicia Greated

Sukanya Kumar Sinha

Naomi Beaumont