(20.10.22) Exchanging new ideas and enabling new endeavours for the future research collaboration between India and Germany – under this motto, the German Research Foundation did celebrate 15 years of its DFG office in India yesterday in New Delhi.

The DFG Office India together with a DFG delegation from Bonn under the leadership of General Secretary Dr. Heide Ahrens hosted the dinner reception at the Imperial Hotel in New Delhi. The German Ambassador to New Delhi, Dr. Phillipp Ackermann did highlight the past years of joint collaborations between India and German and predicted more opportunities for the research communities in both countries.

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The invited guests included representatives of the Indian partner organizations, scientists with strong Indo-German connections and colleagues from the German research organizations with representations in India.

With its offices in Japan, India and the joint venture the Sino German Center for Research Collaboration, the DFG is maintaining strong connections in Asia to the respective host countries and its partner organizations.

Since its inauguration in 2006/2007, the DFG office in New Delhi has not only been the contact point to numerous scientists but also a hub of information for the Indian and German scientific communities. With its connections to the Indian partner organizations it was able to arrange a variety of Indo-German co-funding schemes for joint research projects.

During the last 15 years, DFG and its Indian partner agencies did host 10 joint calls with the agencies such as DST, DBT and ICMR – also, over 500 research stays of Indian researchers in Germany and about 200 research stays of German researchers in India could be funded through the collaboration with INSA. Currently a collaborative Research Unit is in its second joint funding phase – supported by funds from DBT. Additionally, the collaboration between DFG and DST could restart the joint endeavour to support early career scientists by setting up a new call for International Research Training Groups.

The DFG is looking forward to more years to come to support international research collaboration between India and Germany.