SEED FUND

To support the academic collaboration necessary for the establishment of a New Zealand Centre in India, a matching grant programme for developing research collaboration. The jointly-funded Research Collaboration Development Fund would foster collaborative, sustainable, self-supporting research programmes by providing seed monies to faculty members at IITD and New Zealand universities to develop plans for long-term programmes. The program is funded and implemented by IRD under its MFIRP (Multi-Institutional Faculty Interdisciplinary Research Programme) initiative.

This competitive programme is open to faculty members at IIT Delhi and those affiliated with one of New Zealand’s eight universities in all disciplines. Successful proposals will be those which will:
(i) demonstrate an immediate potential to be sustainable through external funding sources and
(ii) involve a clear collaborative effort between faculty members from both their university and IIT Delhi.

IIT Delhi would provide up to ten matching fund grants of up to US$5,000 each for collaboration projects. New Zealand universities applying for funding would be required to provide an equal funding match as part of their application.

In the first round of the call which closed on May 20, 2020, 10 proposals were successful. These projects spanning many areas of science and engineering have xx NZ universities as partners.

Title IITD PI Name & Dept. NZ PI Name & Dept.
Utilisation of Ammonia in a Spark-Ignition Engine
K A Subramanian; Dept. of Energy Science and Engineering
Alan Brent; The VUW Chair supports the transition to sustainable energy of the New Zealand and regional economy & Dr Jim Hinkley, Dr Ramesh Rayudu, Mr Kyle Hall, Dr Ellie Khaghani
Study on beam-to-column connections of cold-formed steel portal frames for low-cost and sustainable constructions
Dipti Ranjan Sahoo; Dept. of Civil Engineering
James B. P. Lim Professor Dept of Civil Engineering & Jason Maxwell Ingham Professor and Head Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, The University of Auckland
Andreev reflection in twisted bilayer graphene junctions: effect of magnetic field
Sankalpa Ghosh Dept. of Physics
Ulrich Otto Peter Zuelicke; Formerly Head of School, School of Chemical and Physical Sciences, Victoria University of Wellington
Deciphering the genome-wide DNA methylation and transcriptomic signature of hypoxia in meningioma
Ritu Kulshrestha Dept. of Biochemical Engineering & Biotechnology
Dr Aniruddha Chatterjee; Associate Dean Research, Dunedin School of Medicine, Univ of Otago
Understanding exit choice behaviour in metro stations using virtual reality
Ramachandra Rao Kalaga Dept. of Civil Engineering & Geetam Tewari Dept. of Civil Engineering
Ruggiero Lovreglio Senior Lecturer in Digital Construction School of Built Environment, Massey University & Zhenan Feng Lecturer in in Digital Construction School of Built Environment, Massey University, New Zealand
Discovering novel long non-coding RNA associated with epigenetic signatures colorectal cancer and dissecting their role in tumor heterogeneity
Ishaan Gupta Dept. of Biochemical Engineering & Biotechnology
Aniruddha Chatterjee Associate Professor Associate Dean Research (Dunedin School of Medicine) Rutherford Discovery Fellow
Adaptive Drone Swarms for Precision Agriculture and Wildlife Conservation
Smruti Ranjan Sarangi Dept. of Computer Science & Engineering
Barbara Bollard Professor Engineering, Computer & Mathematical Sciences & Ashray Doshi UAS Engineer AUT Drone Lab
Digital Twin base Health Management of Wind Turbine Power Train
Ashish Kamalakar Darpe; Dept. of Mechanical Engineering
Ramesh Rayudu Associate Professor Deputy Head of School Engineering and Computer Science School of Engineering
Building Code Checker Model on BIM Structural Plans using AI Approach (BuildBIMAI)
Vasant A Matsagar; Dept. of Civil Engineering & Souvik Chakraborty Dept. of Applied Mechanics
Chitrakala Muthuveerappan; Architectural Science and Management Wellington School of Architecture & Marc Aurel Schnabel; Architecture and Design Innovation, Victoria University of Wellington
Design of an electron cyclotron resonance based magnetically steered plasma thruster
Debaprasad Sahu; Dept. of Energy Science and Engineering & Vikrant Saxena Dept. of Physics; Ramesh Narayanan Dept. of Energy Science and Engineering
John Cater; Faculty of Engineering, The University of Auckland & Nicholas Rattenbury