France’s Thales, Indian Institute of Science in pact for joint doctoral programme

The Indian Institute of Science (IISc.) has entered into a Memorandum of Understanding with French aerospace, defence and electronics system company, Thales, for a PhD fellowship programme created and supervised jointly.

The IISc-CNRS PhD fellowship scheme is scheduled to start at the end of 2015.

The joint research programme is aimed at strengthening Indo-French scientific cooperation through close collaborations between Indian and French laboratories, to boost industrial research through strong inter-connections with academic institutions.

The first edition of the programme will fund up to four fellowships from India.

Under the joint supervision programme, students will have a PhD supervisor in India and a co-supervisor in France (from one of the identified CNRS laboratories). CNRS (Centre national de la recherche scientifique or French National Centre for Scientific Research) is a governmental research organisation in France.

The proposed scheme for the PhD fellowships involves IISc, selected research institutes in France, Thales in India and France.

The two sides will also explore the option of awarding a joint degree between IISc and French institutions in the future.

Prof Dr Jayant Modak, deputy director, IISc, Bengaluru, said: ''Indian Institute of Science is happy to initiate PhD Student Fellowship Programme with Thales.

The programme will bring together researchers from IISc, Thales and CNRS to carry out cutting edge research. I hope this programme acts as a catalyst for a long-term mutually beneficial research collaboration between our organisations.''

Antoine Caput, V-P and country director (India), Thales, said, ''We are proud to associate with Indian Institute of Science to facilitate and promote research and development (R&D) in India.

This partnership reinforces our commitment to the country and takes us a step closer towards strengthening our relationship with the Indian academic community.''