Professor Brian MacCraith, President of DCU with DCU students, Rachita Singh and Abina Philip at launch of DCU’s Ireland India Institute

Through a series of targeted initiatives, the Institute aims to practically support strategic partnerships in business, education and research between the two countries. The initiatives will include:

• An Ireland-India Research Fund, which will help fund research into the grand challenges affecting both states in areas such as sustainable technologies, health and multiculturalism
• The provision of Ireland India Institute Scholarships to support Indian scholars and researchers in their studies in Ireland
• An Ireland India Institute Seminar Series which will bring some of the most significant thinkers and business leaders on contemporary India to Ireland
• In addition, the Institute will provide a suite of academic and extra-mural programmes in areas relevant to contemporary India.

In a key development, Ms Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, Indian entrepreneur and founder, chairman and managing director of Biocon, one of the world’s largest biotechnology companies, has agreed to become patron of the Institute.

Commenting on the launch of the Institute, Mazumdar-Shaw stated: “I am delighted to be patron of this important Ireland-India initiative.

Contemporary Ireland and India face the same global challenges, issues such as healthcare, ageing and sustainability. The Institute will help focus our joint efforts in achieving common solutions to these challenges. It will become a focal point for the study of contemporary India and a meeting place for all friends of India.  I welcome DCU’s continued strategic focus on my country which is based on academic and research excellence.”

Minister for Education and Skills, Ruairí Quinn, who formally launched the Institute, commented: “Dublin City University’s strategic focus on contemporary India has resulted, already, in a series of research collaborations with the sub-continent’s most prestigious Institutions, particularly in the areas of science and technology. The establishment of the Ireland India Institute will see DCU build on that record to host a national centre for the study of contemporary India. As Minister I have sought to drive the international agenda in our higher education institutions. I am delighted with this response to that drive.”

Professor Brian MacCraith, President of Dublin City University, stressed the importance of engagement with India as part of his overall vision for DCU: “On becoming President of DCU I made engagement with contemporary India a strategic priority for the University. Our faculty and researchers have, since that time, made great strides in developing active research projects with our Indian partners in Institutions such as IIT Madras, IISC Bangalore, JNU and IIT Delhi and others. That unprecedented degree of collaboration will be developed and fostered in the coming years through the Ireland India Institute which will become the hub for all those in Irish enterprise and academia who seek to develop our common goal of deeper Ireland India collaboration.”

The Ireland India Institute is hosted at Dublin City University and at www.irelandindiainstitute.ie.

source: http://www.businessandleadership.com / Home> Exporting / by Bernice Barrington / June 18th, 2012