India and United Kingdom (UK) will together jointly create India-UK "NET Zero" Innovation Virtual Centre. Announcing this while chairing the India-UK Science & Innovation Council meeting in presence of his British counterpart, UK Minister George Freeman, Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) Science & Technology Dr Jitendra Singh that India is fast moving to become an economic powerhouse, driven by its extraordinary technological and innovative capabilities which the whole world has begun to acknowledge, particularly after the COVID-19 vaccine success story.

The two leaders called for enhanced Science & Technology cooperation between India and the United Kingdom.

UK has emerged as India’s second largest international research and innovation partner. The India-UK Science & Technology (S&T) collaboration has been growing at a rapid pace and the joint research programme has gone from an almost zero base to close to £300-400 million now.

Both the Ministers appreciated the proposal to create an India-UK "NET Zero" Innovation Virtual Centre which will provide a platform to bring stakeholders from both countries together to work in some of the focus areas including Decarbonization of manufacturing process & transport systems and Green Hydrogen as renewable source.

Both the leaders called for newer collaborations for joint R&D projects between Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council, part of UK Research and Innovation (BBSRC)- Department of Biotechnology, Government of India (DBT) in the area of Farmed Animal disease and Health.