IISc, Canadian varsity to research for water security
Bengaluru: The Indian Institute of Science (IISc) and the Canada-based University of Saskatchewan’s Global Institute for Water Security will jointly conduct a research for water security, an official said on Tuesday.
“We have signed a five-year agreement with the Canadian institute to partner on joint research, training and academic exchanges related to water security, climate science and policy issues,” IISc professor Pradeep Mujumdar said in a statement here.
University of Saskatchewan (USask) President Peter Stoicheff and IISc in-charge Registrar Indumati Srinivasan signed the agreement for collaboration in the research projects.
“This is an exciting research collaboration as Canada and India are facing water security and climate change challenges,” Stoicheff said on the occasion.
USask topped in water resources research in 2019, while the state-run IISc ranked number 1 in India for post-graduate research.
Both institutes have national and global network of scientists, policy makers, business leaders and practitioners to collaborate in the joint research projects.
“We laud the efforts of Mujumdar, who leads our inter-disciplinary centre for water research, and Anjula Gurtoo, who leads our centre for society and policy, an interdisciplinary centre for science and technology policy,” said Srinivasan.
As part of the partnership, the institutes will provide access to their research facilities and pursue bi-lateral and/or global funding opportunities.
“We will also share research expertise and hydrological models at the local and global scale to predict water futures as affected by both climate change and humans,” said Mujumdar.
Both the institutes will also explore short and long-term exchanges of faculty members and qualified personnel, including graduate students, post-doctoral fellows and scientists.
“At USask, we strive to be the university the world needs. A key global need is to better understand glacier decline, snowmelt and groundwater movement, critical to sustainable water supplies and builds upon research in the Canadian Rockies and the Himalayan regions,” said Stoicheff.
USask’s institute is a global leader in water science for cold regions and home to the global water futures programme, the world’s largest freshwater research project.
The joint research goal is to transform the way communities, governments and industries in Canada and other cold regions the world over prepare for and manage increasing water-related threats.