Newton Fund Researcher Link Workshop Grants

British Council in collaboration with Department of Biotechnology (DBT) and Indian Council of Medical Sciences (ICMR) is pleased to announce results for the Newton Bhabha Fund Researcher Link Workshop Grants 2020-21. Please click here to view the  'list of successful applications 2020-21.'

Applications are welcome in the following DBT priority areas:

A. Agriculture and allied areas: Focus on

• Post-harvest processing and handling, (e.g. sustainable packaging, increasing shelf life, etc.)
• Farmed animal and aquaculture diseases
• Offshore farming technologies 

B. Environment and Circular Bio-economy: Focus on

• Impact of climate change on health/wellbeing; biodiversity loss
• Carbon sequestration
• Plastic alternatives
• Translating academic innovations
• Bio-hybrid solar cells

C. Biotechnology-education: research/policy for accelerated development of the sector

D. Health: Focus on

• Accelerated vaccine development
• Advanced biomaterial applications, nano/micro-motors
• Brain research, neurobiology, brain-computer interphase
• Aging and age-related disorders
• Immuno-engineering
• Metabolic engineering for pharmaceutical production

E. Artificial Intelligence and Machine learning in

• Health (epidemic predictions, medical risk prediction, and reduction during humanitarian disasters/emergencies)
• Agriculture, Aquaculture, Marine and Animal products (post-harvest supply chain management)
• Genomics and personalized medicine

Applications are welcome in the following ICMR priority areas

1. Cardiovascular pharmacotherapy in Covid-19 infections 
2. Bio-banking
3. Public health preparedness and response to emerging disease outbreak/pandemic
4. Capacity building of maternity care providers to improve perinatal outcome

• Not‑for‑profit higher education institutions or publicly funded research organisations that have Leading or Established Researchers are eligible to apply as Lead institutions.
• Leading or Established Researchers from above-mentioned category of institutions can apply to be Principal Applicants (as defined by the European commission - download information here).
• Each proposal must have one Principal Applicant from the UK, and one from India.

Please refer to the detailed eligibility criteria in the call guidelines.

British Council will cover:

• International travel per UK participant 

DBT and ICMR will cover:

• Domestic travel per Indian participant
• Subsistence costs for all UK and Indian participants
• Event costs for all UK and Indian participants
• Additional workshop costs

Universities UK International (UUKi) Match Making Service

UUKi offers partner matching service to help connect Newton partner country researchers to potential UK partners for Researcher Link workshop Grant call. Those who would like assistance with finding a UK partner can complete UUKi’s Partner Request Form on the UUKi website, before 15 May 2020. UUKi is then able to suggest UK researchers or research groups that have similar research interests and expertise.