EUROINDIA benefits from earlier groundbreaking work done under BASIC (EuroIndia2004 Cooperation Forum on the Information Society) and MONSOON (http://www.euroindia-it.org): projects which identified, profiled and engaged the widespread Indian ICT research community and helped to significantly increase Indian participation in FP6 and FP7 projects.
EUROINDIA aims to move further down this promising road and sustain collaborative EU-India research and technology development (RTD) potential in a durable manner.
The key objectives of the project are:
- to extensively map ICT research and innovation activities across India
- to perform an in-depth survey of Indian ICT R&D players
- to support the policy dialogue between the EU and India in ICT domains.
The mapping and survey activities will reveal the state of ICT research and innovation in India while identifying suitable themes and personnel for collaborative projects with EU research establishments under FP7 and beyond.
The annual policy dialogue between the European Commission and India will be enriched and strengthened by including the views of ICT research communities from both regions. This will also help in the translation of policy recommendations and joint action agendas into concrete cooperative projects.
During its two-year duration (January 2008 to December 2009), the project will organize six Technology Brainstorming workshops, six ICT information days and two international conferences in India. These events will foster networking within the ICT communities, leading to the identification of mutual areas of interest and development of joint EU-India research projects.
The EUROINDIA kick-off meeting, hosted by the Copenhagen Business School (CBS), was held in Copenhagen on 20-21 January 2008. The meeting started with an opening conference in the presence of the CBS President, Mr Finn Junge-Jensen and the Indian ambassador to Denmark, Sri (Mr) R S Ray. Professor Mogens Kühn Pedersen, head of the department of Informatics at CBS and EUROINDIA project coordinator, introduced the project and presented a brief overview of the scope and objectives of the EUROINDIA initiative. Professor Krithi Ramamritham, Dean of R&D at the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay (IIT-B) and Dr Gérard Huet, Senior Research Scientist at INRIA (France), spoke on ICT R&D practices and approaches from Indian and European perspectives. The Indian ambassador focused on the scope and potential of research and development between India and Denmark.
As planned during the kick-off meeting, the first EuroIndia Information Day was held on 22 April 2008 and hosted by the Indian Institute of Sciences in Bangalore. It offered participants an opportunity to learn how to collaborate with European entities on competitive ICT RTD projects funded by the European Union, by providing them with concrete examples and advice.
The first part of the day was dedicated to a presentation by the European Commission Delegation to India on the state of EU-India science and technology cooperation, with particular emphasis on actions in the ICT domains. EUROINDIA project partner Infra Technologies followed up with a presentation that highlighted the various aspects, instruments, rules and realities pertaining to Indian participation in FP7 projects.
Successive sessions conducted by the Copenhagen Business School on internal innovation in organizations in India and on collaborative ICT R&D saw lively interaction between participants and the panel, bringing to the fore issues having a critical bearing on collaborative research projects. Another project partner, the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay (IIT-B), gave its own perspective on EU-India collaborative research in ICT and shared its experience of participation in EU-funded projects.
Fifty-five participants attended the first information day, 13% being from Europe and 87% from India. Of these attendees, 47% came from academia and research, 20% from small and medium enterprises (SMEs), 16% from consultancies and the remaining 17% from government/public administration, non-profit organizations and research labs.
The EUROINDIA project is coordinated by the Copenhagen Business School Department of Informatics (CBS-INF), with the following partners from the EU and India: Infra Technologies Sarl (INFRA), France; Trust-IT Services Ltd, United Kingdom; the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce & Industry (FICCI) India; the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay (IIT-B), India; and ERCIM.
Link:
http://www.euroindia-ict.org/
Please contact:
Florence Pesce
ERCIM Office
Tel: +33 4 92 38 50 73
E-mail: florence.pesceercim.org
