Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi and Regional Centre for Biotechnology (RCB) Faridabad have signed an MoU to establish ‘RCB-IITD Collaborative Platform’ for initiating wide-ranging collaborations involving academic, research, and human resource development, which will have a profound social and economic impact for the country.

Under the MoU, both institutions will collaborate:

• To carry out joint research by submitting joint research proposals to external funding agencies.
• To make intramural funding for the projects in both IITD and RCB, to initiate the collaborative research among different biological and engineering disciplines of these two institutions.
• To jointly organise seminars, conferences, workshops, and short-term continuing education programmes on mutual interest topics with participation from faculty from both sides.
• To guide research candidates registered in either of the institutions for doctoral and post-graduate programmes with joint-supervision.
• To cooperate on any other activities that may be identified on a consensual basis as and when such an opportunity arises.
• To access the research facilities for each institution.
• Speaking of the MoU with IIT Delhi, Dr Sudhanshu Vrati, Executive Director, RCB Faridabad, said, “This should encourage multidisciplinary research at the two institutions with the expertise of RCB faculty in biotech sciences and IIT Delhi in engineering and sciences.”

Welcoming the MoU with RCB, Prof V Ramgopal Rao, Director, IIT Delhi, said, “IIT Delhi has invested about Rs 300 crore in last 3-4 years to create Advance Central Research facilities on its main campus and Sonipat campus in Haryana. We continue to invest in creating high-end research facilities under which a state-of-art Cryo-EM facility will be installed very soon. We invite RCB scientists to come and utilise these facilities at IIT Delhi.”

He also invited RCB Faridabad to utilise the incubation facilities available at IIT Delhi. The Collaborative Platform will connect the faculties, students, and researchers across different disciplines in the RCB and IIT Delhi. They can develop specialised groups for academic and research, leading to cutting-edge innovations with the fruitful translational outcome.