Thales, a technology firm for defence and security markets, and the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay (IIT Bombay) signed an MoU to create a PhD fellowship scheme starting July 2016. The scheme will be jointly supervised IIT Bombay-CNRS (National Centre for Scientific Research)
The fellowship seeks to strengthen Indo-French scientific collaboration between laboratories and sharing R&D for industrial applications.
The students selected for the jointly supervised PhD fellowships will have a PhD supervisor in India and a co-supervisor in France from any of the labs identified by the CNRS. The programme will provide IIT Bombay students an opportunity to conduct a part of their research project in both countries in areas such as advanced electronics and electromagnetics or complex system engineering.
“Promoting R&D as a way of fostering economic development is of mutual interest to both Thales and IIT Bombay, making this a preferred collaboration,” said Patrice Caine, Chairman and CEO, Thales. “Given our longstanding commitment to the Indian market, this is a natural step forward towards strengthening the knowledge and innovation ecosystem in the country and being even closer to our clients.”
In a statement Devang V Khakhar, Director, IIT Bombay said: “It (the Fellowship scheme) would provide our top students with an access to cutting-edge French technology and advanced industrial environments to carry out research activities, and would set the ground for longstanding Indo-French partnerships.”