BRITISH COUNCIL

Newton Bhabha Fund, India

Project disclaimer

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Description

Newton Bhabha Fund was established in 2014 in India. Named after Sir Issac Newton and Indian Scientist Homi Jehangir Bhabha, who played an important part in the discovery of quantum theory in 1930s, Newton Bhabha Fund is a major bilateral initiative for facilitating research and innovation collaborations between the two countries. British Council is one of eight delivery partners for Newton Bhabha Fund in India. Britsh Council India delivers on the 'People' pillar of the Fund to promote global development impact guided by Sustainable Development Goals. Accordingly, the programme emphasises on professional development of people, by supporting mobility of PhD scholars and advanced training for early career researchers, conducting workshops for established researchers, training faculty in STEM education and empowering women scientists through professional development. Newton Bhabha Fund has supported a number of research and innovation projects in the following priority areas - • Sustainable cities and urbanisation • Public health and wellbeing • Energy-water-food nexus • Understanding oceans • High value manufacturing • Big data Research and innovation subjects are chosen and developed by partners and funders from both countries, to ensure mutual benefit from the academic collaborations. To sum up, the Newton Bhabha Fund Programme addresses global challenges through collaborative efforts. It supports research and innovation partnerships in India to support economic development, social welfare and research and innovation capacity for long-term sustainable growth.

Objectives

As part of British Council's People's Pillar of the Newton Bhabha Fund, its four strands has the following objectives - 1. PhD Placements: PhD Placement Programme aims to faciliate international training and development opportunities to PhD scholars from India and the UK to create sustainable, long-lasting links between India and the UK through short term, 3-4 month placements in Indian or UK Universities. From 2015 onwards till 2019, 900 scholars from India and 50 from the UK applied for this opportunity, out of which 353 Indian PHD scholars and 36 UK scholars took the placement and developed linkages across 177 universities. These scholars have developed institutional partnerships between home and host Universities and professional networks, resulting in better employability. The programme has created a cadre of highly trained researchers with international experience who can contribute to furthering research and innovation in respective countries bringing about economic and social benefits (or contributing towards SDGs). PhD Placement is a very popular programme among STEM scholars in India. A significant achievement of the PhD placement programme is that of the total PhDs placed, almost 150 or 44% were women scholars, re-affirming Newton’s commitment towards promoting inclusion through encouraging women participation in science and innovation. British Council's partnership with Indian Council of Social Sciences Research has resulted in introducing Social Sciences discipline in PhD Placement programme in 2020. This addition is likely to increase influx of UK Scholars coming to India. The partnership will fund about 20 PhDs in Social Sciences in 2020-21. 2. Researcher Link Workshops: Provides opportunities for early career researchers from the UK and India to interact, learn from one another, and builds long-lasting working relationships through workshops in areas that directly benefit India & UK. Researcher Links programme is a building block for international development- relevant research collaborations between early career researchers (in employment) of India and UK. The workshops allow researchers to establish new links or significantly develop existing links with potential for long term sustainability. The Researcher Link workshops engaged with over 920 early career researchers from India and UK (India – 508 and UK – 413) enhancing their professional development. Seven more workshops have been funded which will benefit more than 200 early career researchers by 2020 with a focus on topics related to Sustainable Development Goals. The workshops resulted in building strong and long lasting working relationships between Indian and UK HEIs in areas that directly benefit Indian economic and social prosperity and overall SDGs. The workshops have often resulting in researchers jointly bidding for bigger projects and leveraging more funding from other bilateral sources. 3. Women in Science: Training workshops aims to generate avenues to retain trained womanpower in science by targeting those who are making a transition from education to scientific careers, a stage where there is maximum attrition. It contributes to capacity building by providing Indian women scientists access to training and professional development in Science Administration & Management, Science Journalism and Science Policy. The Newton Bhabha Fund has contributed to creating women leaders in science through its Women in Science workshops that promotes professional development of women scientists. About 370 women scientists were trained in area of Science Administration & Management, Science Journalism and Science Policy. This resulted in opening many vistas of opportunities that were identified and hence created better employability for these trainees. The Workshop has generated avenues to retain trained women labour force in STEM subjects by narrowing skill gaps and furthering their knowledge to bag newer, emerging opportunities. 4. STEM Teacher Training Workshops: To build capacity of college faculty teaching at undergraduate level on Research Based Pedagogical Tools (RBPT) so that they can make subjects on STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) much interesting and effective for students. From 2017-19, 1500 STEM teachers from more than 1000 Indian Universities applied, out of which more than 1,814 participated, got trained and are using the tools with students and their peers.

Target Groups

PhD Scholars, Early Career Researchers, Women Scientists & Administrators and Under-Graduate Teachers and Faculty from Indian Colleges and Polytechnics teaching Science and Mathematics.

Other

Newton Bhabha Fund is a bilateral programme running in India successfully since 2014. This programme is in partnership with Government of India. Key Indian partners for the programme are match-funding PhD Placement programme and Researcher Links Workshops for 2020-21. They are: Department of Science & Technology (DST), Department of Biotechnology (DBT), Indian Council of Social Science Research (ICSSR) and Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR). Partners are contributing 16,038 GBP for year 2021-22 towards travel grant in PhD Placements and on ground workshop delivery in Researcher Links.

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Location

The country, countries or regions that benefit from this Programme.

India

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