Seed grants for five joint research projects between IIT-D, IIIT

Five joint research projects between the Indian Institute of Technology-Delhi (IIT-D) and Indraprastha Institute of Information Technology (IIIT) will be provided seed grants for interdisciplinary research in the fields of computer science and engineering, artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML), electronics and communication engineering, computational biology, social science, humanities and quantum computing. The two institutes had signed an MoU earlier this year to “establish a collaborative platform for mutual benefit”. The MoU intended to “initiate wide-ranging partnerships in academics, research, product & process development, and human resource development with profound socio-economic impact”. They invited joint research projects from faculty members of both institutions. “An external expert committee evaluated the projects and selected five projects for a seed grant. The projects include: Studies on human brain structure and anxiety, Femtech and its future in India, Development of nanodevices, Mathematics theories propounded by Ramanujam, and Model agnostic evaluation of deep-model transfer,” the IIT-D said in a statement. “Tenable for two years, the projects aim to attract full-fledged sponsorship from external agencies based on their outcomes. These projects will function through the Multi-Institutional Faculty Interdisciplinary Research Projects (MFIRP) scheme of the Industrial Research & Development (IRD) Unit of IIT-Delhi,” it said.
IIT-D Director Ramgopal Rao said the partnership “will engender an environment of exchange of information and technical know-how”.
“IIT Delhi, through its MFIRP initiative launched in 2017, connected with many leading institutions in Delhi and enabled funded collaborations between our researchers. The results are quite outstanding. Such collaborations have led to an increased research output, technologies, prototypes and products for societal benefit. At IIT-Delhi, we lay great emphasis on interdisciplinary research as future advancements in science and technology are expected to happen at the intersection of different disciplines,” Rao said.
IIIT Director Ranjan Bose said the teamwork will boost research efforts. “Research is increasingly becoming more collaborative and trans-disciplinary. This unique collaborative initiative by IIT-Delhi and IIIT-Delhi has already brought together faculty members from both the institutes, inspired them to define problems of mutual interest, exchange expertise, and also build personal relations. We hope that this cooperation will help improve the posture of technological innovation and next-generation research,” he said.

Source – TheIndianExpress