India and Italy give major thrust to Cooperation in Science & Technology - Eight MoUs Signed

Indian and Italian Science delegations today signed agreements for cooperation in eight major fields of Science and Technology. Speaking on the occasion, the Ministry for Science and Technology, Shri Kapil Sibal said that the agreements will provide an opportunity to start projects of common interest, joint research programmes in the new areas like Bio-informatics, Neuro-informatics etc. and to develop centres of excellence in the field of Science and Technology. Shri Sibal said that the agreements have also opened the chance of European funding for Indian Scientific projects. While stressing upon the synergysing of the talent and know-how of the two countries, the Minister suggested to his counterpart that cooperation in the area of Land Mapping would also be helpful for agriculture.

The Italian Minister for Education, Universities and Research Ms. Iliza Moratti said that the new agreements will certainly enhance the scientific activities between India and Italy. Under these agreement setting up of join laboratories would ultimately be helpful in the transfer of technologies to industrial sector in both the countries, the Italian Minister said. She also assured that agreement on Space Research and establishment of Research hub on grid technologies would provide new research opportunity to the scientists of both the countries.

Brief account of eight bilateral intents between Indian & Italian Research centres of excellence being signed on February 15. 2005.

1. MoU on a Joint Laboratory for Applicable Mathematics and Information Sciences between the Universia di Udine, Udine and the B.M. Birla Science Centre, Hyderabad.

An International Institute for Applicable Mathematics and Information Sciences (IIAMS) with two branches, one in Udine and one at Hyderabad to be set up. This institute will address scientific topics in particular, web technology, information filtering, virtual museums. Forty researchers involving 10 Universities, autonomous research centres, S&T Parks and private institutions from both countries will be involved for undertaking following activities:

Development of Joint Research Projects, Technology Transfer of web enabled technologies to SMEs and post-graduate level training.
2. MoU on academic and research collaboration in Information and Communication Technology between the Scuola Superiore Sant Anna, Pisa and the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur.

Aims of exchange of Indian Masters' and Doctoral students to carry part of their work in SSS Anna Pisa for one year; Indian to carry out 3 years doctoral programme at SSS Anna, Pisa; and two Indian post-doc scholarships at SSS Anna for two years; plus Italian students enrolled for doctoral at SSS Anna, Pisa to spend 3 months - one year at IIT, Kharagpur.

Will also cater to carrying out joint research collaboration and the preferred scientific fields will be biomedical engineering, telemedicine, distance learning, telecommunications.

The financial provision for each exchange will be an average annual gross salary of one full professor of engineering in either country. Euro 12,000/year/person is the anticipated funding in addition to international travel for Indians visiting Pisa. Student Scholarship of Euro 1500/month is also indicated.

Reference to domestic laws for IPR sharing reflected. IIT, Kharagpur will be accessing funding requirement from its side from its parent Ministry, HRD.
3. MoU on the establishment of a research hub on Neuroinformatics between the Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche - ITB Institute of Biomedical Technology, Milano and the National Brain Research Centre, Gurgaon.

Aims at exchange of 14 researchers belonging to NBRC and its 45 network centres on the Indian side and 4 Universities and national research institutes from Italian side. Execution of joint research and training of young scientists anticipated on scientific topics, namely; neuroinformatics portal, online neuroinformatics course, biological diagnostic image data -base, grid applications in neuroinformatics, etc.

4. MoU on the establishments of a research hub on Bioinformatics between the Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche - ITB Institute of Biomedical Technology, Milano and the University of Pune, Pune.

Aims at exchange of 28 researchers belonging to 5 Indian and 11 Italian Universities, national research centres and professional societies for developing joint research projects on scientific topics, such as remote bioinformatic resources, gene identification and expression analysis, bioinformatics parallel programming models.

5. MoU on a Joint Laboratory for Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems between the ITC-IRST in Trento and the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur.

Aims at exchange of 40 researchers belonging to 6 Indian and 10 Italian Universities, national labs and industry for developing joint research on scientific topics, namely, advanced optical sensors, uncooled IR detectors, analysis of biomolecules on MEMS surfaces.

6. MoU on joint Centre in Emerging Web Applications between the University of Trento, Trento and the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai.

7. Agreement between ISRO and the Agenzia Spaziale Italiana (ASI) for cooperation in space science, technology and application between the Agenzia Spaziale Italiana and the Indian Space Research Organization.

Aims at defining a joint earth observation mission. Feasibility of utilizing Italian payload on board Indian satellites and vice-versa; exchange of experience and earth observation and remote sensing application; joint study on feasibility of space based EWS for natural disaster reduction and mitigation.

8. MoU on the establishment of a research hub on Grid Technologies and Related Infrastructures between the Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare and the Department of Atomic Energy of India.

It aims at exchange of 40 researchers belonging to Department of Atomic Energy from India and 11 institutions from Italian side, for developing joint research programmes in grid middle ware development and grid research infrastructure deployment.

Source : Ministry of Science & Technology
Date: February 15, 2005