IIT-M to host Global Water and Climate Adaptation Centre

Indian Institute of Technology Madras will host a ‘Global Water and Climate Adaptation Centre’ supported by a German Government Agency.

IIT Madras will be home to the main hub with a satellite hub coming up at the Asian Institute of Technology, Bangkok.

This centre is being formed by German Academic Exchange Service and is being set up in collaboration with the German institutes of Technical University of Dresden and RWTH Aachen University. This Centre is named ‘ABCD’ (Aachen-Bangkok-Chennai-Dresden).

With its geographical reach of four major cities, the Centre represents a strategic expansion of existing networks between leading German and Asian universities under a common thematic umbrella, says a release from IIT Madras.

The Centre will be an enabling platform that incentivises, bundles and magnifies further joint action in higher education, research, technology and knowledge transfer. The Centre is being led by SA Sannasiraj, a professor at the Department of Ocean Engineering, IIT Madras.

Also read: IIT-M launches CREST for academic and thought leadership

A joint global MSc course on ‘Water Security and Global Change’ is being conceptualised. In addition, a Joint Doctoral Research Programme to promote interdisciplinary works to address water security under global partnering institutes has also been launched.

The Centre aims to reduce carbon emissions through measures such as enabling internationalisation while at the same time replacing international travel through the use of digital communication tools. This idea has been embedded in the design of the Centre from the outset and is expressed in a joint commitment to global sustainability, the release said.