In order to strengthen and make more strategic their bilateral partnership on innovation, India and Switzerland inaugurated the Indo-Swiss innovation platform on Monday, beginning with a pilot project on antimicrobial resistance.
In an interview with PTI in New Delhi on Monday, Swiss Ambassador to India Ralf Heckner said Switzerland is one of the most innovative countries in the world, and India is becoming more innovative.
“We have more and more convergence when it comes to innovation”, he said, adding that the platform will take a more strategic approach to Switzerland’s innovation connection with India and vice versa.
An Indo-Swiss Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) Innovation Dialogue has been organized in Bengaluru to commemorate the platform’s inauguration.
The Dialogue was organized by Swissnex in India in collaboration with the Universities of Geneva and Zurich, the National Centre for Biological Sciences (NCBS), and the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER Pune).
Swissnex in India, Consulate General of Switzerland, was created in 2010 as the Swiss scientific and technology consulate in Bengaluru.
Swissnex is a global network in Switzerland that connects the dots in education, research, and innovation.
The launch of the innovation platform coincided with the AMR Dialogue.
Swissnex in India, in collaboration with the Swiss Embassy in India and the Swiss Business Hub, aims to enable greater partnerships and collaborations between the two nations.
“The innovation platform will focus on a few areas where the opportunities for deeper collaboration are clear, plausible, and relevant to both countries. The idea of the platform is to consider matters beyond initial conversations in a planned and thorough manner that lead to tangible, measurable outcomes in the health, sustainability, and digital transformation spaces”, the statement reads.
Later, bids for the Indo-Swiss Joint Research Programme, a bilateral financing mechanism, will be solicited, with the goal of directly supporting possible research collaborations mentioned at the Dialogue.
“We would like to keep the bottom-up approach but marry it with the top-down approach… we will build on existing partnerships…. this platform idea, bringing together the best Indian and Swiss universities and research institutions with the best and most innovative Swiss and Indian companies, and then aligning our governmental policies with it, this is a new kind of platform approach and doing innovation together”, Heckner said.
He stated that the antimicrobial resistance pilot study will provide information on whether the platform concept is working and how it can be enhanced.
“Once that is established, we will expand into new verticals and widen the thematic reach of the innovation platform. It is all about health, sustainability, and digitization. These are the three major areas, and we’ll begin with health”, he explained.
There are around 320 Swiss enterprises in India, with 30 of them having an R&D department.
“The innovation platform is a first, and if it is successful, we would replicate that in other countries where Switzerland has an interest in more strategic innovation relationships”, the Ambassador added.
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