Both ministers during their bilateral discussions while recalling various collaborative activities between the two countries, expressed resolve to further cement their ties in the field of Science & Technology. Dr. Harsh Vardhan said that together both the countries should now address grand challenges through scientific understanding and technology interventions on Public Health & Well Being; Energy-Water-Food nexus; Sustainable Infrastructure; as well as Manufacturing Technologies and Big Data Analytics. These are all priority focus areas of the present government under our national missions like Make in India, Digital India, Smart Cities, Clean India and Start-up India, Dr. Harsh Vardhan added.
Shri Jo Johnson said that his country will try to continue its support to the Newton – Bhabha Programmes with increased funding. He assured that there will be a big participation by the British at the India-UK Technology Summit Knowledge expo in October next year.
The Prime Ministers of India and UK in a joint statement during the visit of the Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi to London last month had announced that UK will be the partner country for the 2016 Technology Summit in Delhi.
The two Prime Ministers announced that 2016 would be the UK-India year of Education, Research and Innovation. This will highlight the strengths of the bilateral relationship, drive further collaboration, including a range of digital technology enabled education and training initiatives, so that both countries create a new 21st century framework as partners in education, research and innovation partners, in the global context.
They welcomed the announcement by Innovate UK, the Department of Science and Technology (DST) and the Global Innovation and Technology Alliance (GITA), of the opening of a third round of collaborative industrial R&D, making up to $3.5 million available to support novel commercial solutions in the areas of clean-tech energy, affordable healthcare and ICT related to clean-tech energy and healthcare.
The 2016 October summit is expected to bring together the best of UK and Indian companies talking about technology cooperation under one roof. It will showcase the success of the Science and Technology cooperation between the two nations and will explore partnerships for future initiatives.
The India-UK Technology Summit & Knowledge expo 2016 will focus on critical sectors such as Manufacturing, Information & Communication Technology, Affordable Healthcare, and Clean Technology.
The summit, like the previous editions, will provide a wide-ranging knowledge partnership platform to industry, institutions and government agencies from India and the UK for forging knowledge-business partnerships in manufacturing, trade & investments and also in facilitating a comprehensive convergence of key elements of Knowledge Economy, i.e., Science, Technology and Research & Development; Design; Intellectual Property Rights, Higher Education and Skills; and Innovation & Entrepreneurship.
Five Concurrent India-UK conferences and large India-UK exhibition will provide stakeholders from both sides for exploring knowledge-business partnerships. The major beneficiaries of the summit & exposition will be micro small and medium enterprises which are the backbone of Indian manufacturing and which need access to next generation technologies to sustain growth into the next decade.