Thursday, 9 October 2014

Italia-India: state-of-the-art of the ITPAR Programme

An Indian delegation visited the Rector's, thus renewing the committment to the collaboration involving universities and research centres in India and in Trentino

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Computer science, nanoscience, cognitive neurosciences and telecommunications are the research fields of  ITPAR (India-Trento Programme for Advanced Research), an advanced research programme which has been an important scientific bridge between Italy, in particular with the scientific institutions of Trentino, and India, for over 11 years

The 8th meeting of the Scientific Committee of the ITPAR Programme was held in Trento a few days ago. The meeting involved the Indian and the Italian heads of the programme and scientific coordinators to take stock of the state-of-the-art of the financed projects in the various research areas and to focus on the two new projects to support.
 
The delegation was made of the Indian scientific coordinator of the whole programme (the Indian scientist Vijayalakshmi Ravindranath), representatives of the Indian government, of the Italian Ministry for Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation and of the Autonomous Province of Trento. They paid a visit to the University management, at the Rector’s Office. 
The commitment to the scientific and technology collaboration involving universities and research centres of India and Trentino was reiterated. In addition, the guidelines for the next years have been debated, in particular focussing on the young researchers.

The ITPAR  programme started in 2009, thanks to an agreement signed by the  Department of Science and Technology of the Indian government, the Autonomous Province of Trento, the then Istituto di Cultura and the University of Trento. It aims at promoting joint research projects, which are bilaterally selected and financed, and to support various collateral actions, such as the mobility of researchers, the joint training of HR, the enhancement of the research facilities and lab equipment. 
The first two phases of the programme (2003-2011) involved 80 Indian researchers who came to Trento, and 57 researchers of the University of Trento and of the Bruno Kessler Foundation, who spent a period at Indian universities and research centres. The jointly published over 100 articles on important international journals. Among the significant initiatives implemented over the years they promoted the awarding of research grants “Bose-Romagnosi”, in memory of the Indian physicist Satyendra Nath Bose [1894-1974] and the scientist Gian Domenico Romagnosi [1761-1835], the latter worked a lot in Trentino.
The current and third phase of the programme started in October 2012, with the decision to prolong the ITPAR agreement for another three years, thus further strengthening the cooperation network among the Indian research institutions, the University of Trento and the Bruno Kessler Foundation, aimed at promoting joint research projects.