India and Australia last week vowed to boost collaboration in science, technology and research to support their national COVID-19 responses and promote innovative solutions to fight the pandemic.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Prime Minister of Australia, Scott Morrison MP, had announced COVID-19 Research Collaboration during India-Australia Leaders’ Virtual Summit.

Now the Department of Science & Technology (DST), Ministry of Science & Technology, GOI and Department of Industry, Science, Energy and Resources (DISER), Australia have invited joint research projects on COVID-19 from interested scientists and researchers under the Australia-India Strategic Research Fund (AISRF), a platform for bilateral collaboration in science, jointly managed and funded by the governments of India and Australia.

The research proposals are expected to focus on antiviral coatings, other preventive technologies, data analytics, modelling, Artificial Intelligence  applications, and screening and diagnostic testing as priority areas. The project duration would be for 12 months with maximum extension of 6 months.

The objective of the grant opportunity is to fund short collaborative research projects with tangible outcomes focused on responding to the COVID-19 pandemic. The intended outcomes of the grant opportunity are to bring together leading research institutions and industry in both Australia and India currently working on areas relevant to COVID-19 such as vaccines, therapeutics, and diagnostics, and projects of a mutually beneficial nature whose outcomes contribute to the global response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The priority areas of research for Round Thirteen of the Indo-Australian Biotechnology Fund are: 

i. Development of immunotherapeutics

ii. Development of animal model / in vitro model for vaccine development

iii. Assay development and validation for testing of vaccines and therapeutics

iv. Viral genomics and bioinformatics

The details are available on onlinedst.gov.in. The last date for submission of online application is 2nd July 2020.

The research proposals are expected to focus on antiviral coatings, other preventive technologies, data analytics, modelling, AI applications, and screening and diagnostic testing as priority areas.