Indo-Australian meet to benefit scholars underway

Hyderabad: A joint RMIT (Australia) –AcSIR (India) workshop was inaugurated at Indian Institute of Chemical Technology (IICT), Tarnaka, on December 5 for the benefit of scientists and research scholars of IICT, CCMB and NGRI. The workshop would be held till December 7 with 20 lectures from eminent professors from RMIT and scientists from IICT, CCMB and NGRI, as well as 18 poster presentations from PhD scholars of IICT.

The collaboration with RMIT has been extended to the Academy of Scientific and Innovative Research (AcSIR), a deemed university, which registers research scholars from 39 CSIR laboratories under an MoU. Dr S Chandrasekhar, IICT Director, highlighted the achievements of the RMIT–IICT collaboration. 
The RMIT University, based in Melbourne, has been in a successful collaboration with IICT for the past decade to promote human resources development through PhD programme in fields of chemical sciences, biology, engineering and other branches of science and technology. Several PhDs have been granted under this joint programme which covers two and half years of research at IICT and one year research at RMIT. 

During the inaugural function, Dr Chandrasekhar welcomed the gathering. He highlighted the collaboration efforts. Prof Calum Drummond, Deputy Vice-Chancellor, and Dr Suresh Bhargava, distinguished professor of RMIT, gave presentations on the scope for collaborative research between the two countries. Acting directors from CCMB and NGRI also spoke.  Convener of the programme Dr S Sridhar, Senior Principal Scientist, conveyed that an agreement was signed between IICT, AcSIR and RMIT for intake of more students into the collaborative programme.