07.05.07
The major awards for UK-Indian research collaboration which were announced at the beginning of the year are starting to filter their way down through the system
Announced by Gordon Brown during his trip to India in January, the awards are a key part of the UK-India Education and Research Initiative (UKIERI), which is designed to increase education and research cooperation between the two countries
The ubiquitous Jade Goody...
The Initiative got off to the worst of starts however when, in a moment of tragic irony, the high-brow awards were overshadowed by the low-brow accusations of racism made towards Celebrity Big Brother contestant Jade Goody and her treatment of the Bollywood star Shilpa Shetty.
The Chancellor was forced to comment while in India, and instead of headlines lauding a new, intellectually-mature relationship between Britain and its former dominion, the headlines in both countries were dominated by the race row.
Award winners
The awards did get handed out however, and the winners of the major, up-to-£500,000 category were Cambridge, City, Imperial, Leicester, Nottingham and Reading (with their Indian collaborators). The money is just beginning to filter through, and, by 2011, UKIERI aims are for these and other projects to deliver the following: