Starting in mid-2020, the Centre for Global Engineering (CGEN) at UofT has worked closely with the Centre for Technology Alternatives for Rural Areas (CTARA) at IIT-Bombay to help catalyze a collaborative research cluster between faculty at the two institutions focused on the theme of sustainable development in India. Through numerous rounds of brainstorming meetings, 10 projects were fully scoped out by August 2021, and currently nine projects are active with 7 participating PIs from 5 Departments across University of Toronto (2×MIE, 1×ECE, 1×UTSC, 1×UTIAS, and 1×ChemE). The research cluster was awarded an International Doctoral Cluster (IDC) in April 2021, with CGEN being the fund’s custodian. The IDC would provide $100,000 per year for up to 3 years with an overarching aim to facilitate collaborative innovation by enabling UofT graduate students and faculty to access international research training opportunities by supporting outbound travel and accommodation for UofT students to IIT-B to help them conduct their field research in India.
NOTE: Since there was a moratorium on all travel until 1 May 2022, no research trips were scheduled until summer 2022. Since then, research teams of five faculty members (Dr. Marney Isaac, Dr. Jorg Liebeherr, Dr. David Meyer, Dr. Hugh Liu and Dr. Amy Bilton) have travelled to IIT-B using the IDC.