ISIS and India have a long history of collaboration, with India becoming the first ISIS international partner with an agreement, signed in 1983, contributing to development of one of the very first ISIS instruments, IRIS.
In 2016 STFC signed an agreement with the Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research (JNCASR, Bengaluru). This included JNCASR contributing to a new instrument at ISIS (Zoom) and provision of access for Indian users to the facility. This £2M investment over five years was funded by the Indian Nanomission, part of India's Department of Science and Technology, which aims to foster, promote and develop all aspects of nanoscience and nanotechnology with the potential to tackle global challenges.
Zoom has been welcoming users since Autumn 2018. The enhanced capabilities of Zoom provide insights into how drugs interact with the body as well as about important industrial materials, including polymers, emulsions, metals and alloys. Involvement in the Zoom instrument development has allowed Indian scientists to access neutron and muon facilities at ISIS that complement the capabilities of India’s national facilities.
The delegation were visiting the UK as part of a wider initiative of UK Science Minister George Freeman MP and Indian Science Minister Dr Jitendra Singh to review R&I partnerships and future collaboration between the two countries at the UK-Science and Innovation Council, where they announced £16 million of matched investment between the UK and India.
Roger Eccleston, ISIS Director, said, “The partnership between ISIS and India goes right back to start of the ISIS facility and benefits both countries and the global research community. Since the ISIS-India agreement was signed, the number of proposals from Indian researchers has increased substantially. India is in the top ten list of research publishing nations and produces over 2.5 million STEM graduates each year. Indian researchers have used ISIS to make an impact in a broad spectrum of research ranging from collaborations with industrial giant Tata Steel who have used the Engin-X instrument to improve their products, to fundamental research into nanoparticles, technologically relevant multiferroics and superconductivity. Long may the partnership continue!”
