The Hindu Business Line : German research body expanding presence in India

Hyderabad April 14 The DFG German Research Foundation, an apex body for academic research, is in the process of expanding its collaborative presence in India.

"We wish to expand the gamut of our research collaborations with premier Indian institutes and the process is already on," Mr Reinhard Grunwald, Secretary-General, German Research Foundation, told Business Line here on Tuesday.

DFG had been collaborating with the University of Hyderabad in life sciences and nanotechnlogy areas.

"I interacted with the Vice-Chancellor and other scientists at the university and am quite happy with the collaboration and we would expand it further," Mr Grunwald said. The foundation is currently in talks with universities of Delhi, Jaipur, Kolkata and IITs for taking up joint research projects. "We will finalise the details very soon," he added.

More disciplines

Though Indo-German collaboration in R&D is not a new thing, Germany now wants to overhaul the collaboration to cover a wide spectrum of academic disciplines.

"Till now, the focus is mainly on the basic sciences. We now want to fund collaborative projects on any discipline from archaeology to zoology," he said.

Identifying mathematics and environmental studies as some of the focus areas for Germany in India, the head of German research agency said: "There is lot of room for growth in R&D. There is plenty of Indian talent in mathematics and social-ecology and this should be harnessed for the benefit to both countries."

Intellectual exchanges

Stressing that intellectual exchanges hold the key to innovation, Mr Grunwald said Germany would facilitate more exchange of scholars with India. "Over 80 per cent of our top scholars had gone to the US and had fruitful interaction. I see lot of potential in India too on this front," he observed.

Germany, despite sensing trouble beyond 2050 due to ageing and dwindling population, is focussing on emerging as a centre of innovation in Europe. "Our agency budget for 2007 is 1.897 billion euros. This is the highest in Europe for a publicly funded research body," he said.

The small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in Germany are buoyant centres of innovation and they could collaborate with their counterparts in India, he observed.

Talking about the joint efforts by European nations in R&D, Mr Grunwald felt that the formation of European Research Area (ERA) and European Higher Education Area by 2010 would also augur well for countries like India. "We are increasing permeability between different sectors in the economy and cooperation of science with small and medium enterprises. This way, Indo-German efforts can produce wonderful results," he said.

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