Dr Jitendra Singh and Argentina STI Minister discuss bilateral collaboration

The Argentina Minister also sought India’s support to deploy technologies for implementation by industry and facilitating the entrepreneurs in Argentina.

Argentina Minister of Science, Technology & Innovation of Argentina, Mr Daniel Filmus accompanied by a high-level delegation, called on Union Minister of Science and Technology and Earth Sciences Dr Jitendra Singh here today and discussed bilateral collaboration between the two countries.

The Argentina Minister also sought India’s support to deploy technologies for implementation by industry and facilitating the entrepreneurs in Argentina.

Dr Jitendra Singh said, CSIR would be very keen to connect with the Industries from Argentina and work towards implementation of the technologies/products/processes in Latin American Nations with governmental support. He said, CSIR is among the global R&D leaders and has intrinsic strengths to provide S&T expertise in the development process through effective international collaboration.

Dr Jitendra Singh also recalled Prime Minister Narendra Modi's meeting with Argentina President Mauricio Macri on the sidelines of G20 in 2016 at Hangzhou.

Dr Jitendra Singh said, the CSIR can play a lead role, especially in industrial innovation collaboration through joint technology development and upscaling of each other’s Intellectual Property (IP) for commercialization.

Dr Jitendra was pleased to note that CSIR and National Council of Scientific and Technical Research (CONICET) of Argentina had signed a cooperation agreement way back in 1985 which was renewed in 2009. Two joint R&D projects were executed by their institutes under inter-governmental programme between DST, India and the Ministry of Science, Technology and Productive Innovation (MINCyT) of Argentine on a) Exploring microbial diversity in traditional fermentations from India and Argentina and its potential for bioethanol production (CSIR-Central Leather Research Institute, CSIR-CLRI) during 2015-18) and b) Developing and implementing chemogenomics platform for aiding drug discovery for tropical infectious diseases" (CSIR-National Chemical Laboratory (CSIR-NCL) during 2016-19).

Dr Jitendra Singh said that,CSIR welcomes strengthening collaboration with Argentina for co-development and deployment of joint programs especially focused on promoting in-house development in industrial sectors such as Biotechnology (including plant biotechnology and food technologies); Nanotechnology (including nanomaterials); Healthcare (Therapeutics, using both modern science and traditional knowledge, Diagnostics, Vaccines and Pharmaceuticals); Sustainable (Green) Energy and Environment; Marine science and Oceanography; Mining and Minerals; Aerospace technologies; Electronics and instrumentation; and Chemicals, Leather and Petrochemicals.

Dr Jitendra Singh informed his Argentinian counterpart Mr Filmus that Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), with world-class expertise and facilities, is one of the largest industrial R&D organizations in the world with 37 multi-disciplinary R&D institutes located across India. With its state-of-the-art expertise, capacities and capabilities CSIR could contribute effectively towards Research and Innovation Collaborations, Technology Partnerships, Research Infrastructure Development & Sharing, and Capacity Building., the Minister added.

CSIR’s Technology Incubators [Venture Center at CSIR-National Chemical Laboratory (NCL), Atal Incubation Centre at CSIR-Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB), Aerospace Incubation Centre of CSIR-National Aerospace Laboratories (NAL), Incubation Centre of CSIR-Institute of Himalayan Bioresource Technology (IHBT) and CSIR-Indian Institute of Toxicology Research] are successfully contributing in India’s innovation development with active participation of industry, especially start-ups. CSIR can host science parks’, incubators and accelerators’ residents from Argentina in its incubators and facilitate its incubators’ residents to access such facilities in Argentina. Also, CSIR could organize specialized entrepreneurship development programmes/ training courses focused specifically for technological updates and sharing incubator management experiences.

(With Inupts from PIB)