IIT Madras to set up Joint Research Centre with Swinburne University, Melbourne
Chennai: Indian Institute of Technology Madras is going to collaborate with Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne, to establish a Joint Research Centre for creation of Enterprise Eco-Systems (C2E2). It will combine the expertise in emerging science and technologies to expand research capacity and capability of both Institutions.
The Joint Research Centre will provide opportunities to share research facilities, enable collaboration among researchers for projects and papers, joint supervision of doctoral level research students and develop joint government and industry partnerships in India, Australia and internationally.
Speaking about the importance of this collaboration, Prof Bhaskar Ramamurthi, Director, IIT Madras,said, “IIT Madras values its Joint PhD programme with Swinburne University which is flourishing well. The Joint Research Centre with Swinburne is another step towards enhancing our collaboration and involving industry in transformative research that has impact across the world. The visit by the Swinburne delegation led by the Chancellor paves the way for taking our partnership to the next level.”
The International Research Collaboration Agreement was signed recently by Prof Bhaskar Ramamurthi, Director, IIT Madras and Mr. Graham Goldsmith, Chancellor, Swinburne University of Technology.
Highlighting the unique aspects of this Centre, Mr. Graham Goldsmith, Chancellor, Swinburne University of Technology, said, “Swinburne was the first Australian university to have a joint PhD program with IIT Madras and we currently have several students enrolled. The new Joint Research Centre will assist in enhancing and scaling up our relationship, creating real-life social and economic impact and benefits for both our countries.”
The Centre has been sanctioned a funding of USD 300,000 for a three-year period, shared equally between the two institutions. It aims to have socio-economic impact for both the countries through delivering high value research and build strong complementary relationship through access to the partner research facilities and team. It will also engage new industry partners from both countries and government bodies.
Speaking about the tie-up, Prof Mahesh Panchagnula, Dean (International and Alumni Affairs), IIT Madras, said, “Australia has emerged as a strategic partner in our university relations. Among the many Australian universities, Swinburne is our oldest and most active partner institution. This centre will further strengthen the relationship between our two institutions.”
A key focus area for this centre is to explore and create joint start-ups through active engagement between the incubation eco-systems in the two institutions.
The C2E2 will be led by Joint Research Centre Co-Chairs appointed by both institutes to lead strategic planning and development. The focus areas will be:
Ø Advanced Manufacturing and Materials
Ø Socio-economic uplift including ‘Smart Cities’
Ø Human Centric Design Platform including Smart Farming
Ø Medical Devices
Ø AI and Decision Sciences including IoY
Ø Biotechnology
Ø Mathematics
The centre is looking at least three new major industry partnerships with major industries such as Mahindra and Mahindra and Tata Group.
It also aims to deliver at least 15 partner PhD. students enrolled over a three-year period and have more than 30 joint publications in the same period. At least ten proposals are envisaged to be submitted to funding agencies such as Australian Research Council (ARC), Australia-India Strategic Research Fund (AISRF), Australia-India EMCR Fellowships and Indo-Australian Career Boosting Gold Fellowships (IACBGF-Fellowships).