A long history of association and knowledge exchange between renowned chemists and institutes at Hyderabad and Germany, came to fruition as Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)-Hyderabad and Tata Institute of Fundamental Research-Hyderabad launched their partnership with Germany’s Heidelberg University (HU) on Monday.
The Indo-German initiative named Heidelberg-Hyderabad Hub in Advanced Chemical Education (H3ACE) kickstarted with the participation of HU’s vice presidents Andreas Dreuw and Katja Patzel-Mattern with their five professors and 17 Master students joining 17 professors and 40 students from various institutions, including IIT-H, TIFR-H, Indian Institute of Chemical Technology, and University of Hyderabad — at the start of the five-day school on Computational Chemistry being held on IITH campus on Monday.
While HU is at the forefront of the collaboration, more chemical research universities from Germany will come to Hyderabad and join acclaimed research institutes of India, at this hub, G. Narahari Sastry, dean, Sponsored Research & Consultancy at IIT-H said, addressing the press.
“Usually, it is Indians going to Germany, but we want Germans to come to Hyderabad and learn with us. IIT-H will give HU an office on the campus to set up the hub,” he said.
According to TIFR-H director M. Krishnamurthy, chemistry is a junction point for physics, biology, computer science and medicine, for an inter-disciplinary approach to address social problems.
Apart from India, Mr. Krishnamurthy’s research had been in Heidelberg, and he said that the Hyderabad collaboration is a remarkable one particularly in view of the city’s unique interest in Chemistry, the institutes, and as the industry leader in the country for bio and pharma. The programme will nurture the next generation of scientists, he observed.
H3ACE, to encourage and build academia-industry partnerships to conduct chemical research and innovation, as a first step also proposed to meet industry pioneers and Telangana State government on Tuesday.
Director (IITH) B.S. Murty stated that H3ACE will serve as a model for interdisciplinary cooperation, addressing pressing global challenges, and strengthen existing academic and research collaborations with the universities of Germany like DAAD program, University of Siegen, Otto-von-Guericke-University Magdeburg and others.
For Special Chief Secretary (ITE&C) Jayesh Ranjan, the programme would foster collaborative research and enable students to gain hands-on experience and training in modern, state-of-the-art advanced chemistry. He noted that Telangana supports the Indo-German initiative.
The ongoing five-day school on Computational Chemistry has experts from India and Germany to present and discuss computational tools and techniques for solving real-world challenges, familiarise students with theoretical and practical aspects of advanced calculations, and develop a research roadmap to accelerate AI-driven innovations in computational drug design, electrochemistry, QSPR and the related fields.
