The Indian Institute of Technology Hyderabad (IITH, Director: Prof. B. S. Murty, Kandy, Sanghar Reddy District, Telangana, India), and the National Institute for Materials Science (NIMS; President: Kazuhito Hashimoto, 1-2-1 Sengen, Tsukuba, Ibaraki, 305-0047 Japan) signed an agreement for opening "IITH-NIMS Joint Research Center" at NIMS on 6th April 2021.
IITH is one of the world-renowned Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) for science and engineering education, and among the IITs, Hyderabad is a University with particularly close ties to Japan as it was established using technical and financial support from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan and Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA). Also, IITH is attracting much attention from industries and universities in Japan. In November 2019, IITH and NIMS signed the first agreement on the promotion of comprehensive research cooperation between both institutions for the purpose of exchange of researchers and scientific information.
Furthermore, in 2020, IITH and NIMS signed the agreement on an International Collaborative Graduate School Program, which allows graduate students enrolled in doctoral programs to stay at NIMS for up to one year for their thesis research works. To further develop the joint research with complementary strengths in the materials science field, young faculty members of IITH stay at NIMS with their PhD course students during sabbatical leave period and conduct the sustainable collaboration with NIMS scientists. In order to perform the sustainable joint research between both institutions, we are pleased to announce that "IITH-NIMS Joint Research Center” was launched.
As mentioned above, IITH has a strong and close tie with Japan. The opening of this joint research center will further strengthen these ties and support the future leaders of both countries to achieve the best research results in the field of materials science.
In the first year, two projects were selected that are expected to contribute to the industrial fields (digital information and communication and low-carbon society-related fields) that have strong potential for growth in India. In the future, the joint research center will contribute to the strengthening of the Japan-India materials technology network.
Currently, scientists from both organizations are preparing for research collaboration after COVID-19 pandemic end by online scientific information exchange and provision of samples.
