

New Delhi, Oct 19 (IANS): Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES) and the Academy of Scientific and Innovative Research (AcSIR) entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) here, recognising all ten MoES research institutes as AcSIR Associated Research Institutes and paving the way for joint doctoral programmes, an official statement said on Monday.
The institutional collaboration integrates MoES’s state-of-the-art research facilities and scientific expertise with AcSIR’s flexible academic framework to offer doctoral (PhD) programs across diverse domains of earth system sciences, including atmospheric, ocean, and polar sciences, the statement from the Ministry of Earth Sciences said.
The partnership bridges MoES and its ten institutions with AcSIR, establishing a unified ecosystem for advanced scientific research and educational capacity building across oceanography, atmospheric sciences, hydrology, and planetary systems.
The joint framework aims to foster interdisciplinary research, streamline resource and infrastructure sharing among national laboratories, and provide upgraded academic opportunities for early-career scientists and students.
Secretary of the Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES) Dr. Srinivasa Kumar Tummala said that the ministry will benefit significantly from the partnership, and that it will ensure that the collaboration "becomes a great association going forward for the benefit of the entire earth science faculty, science, and technology researchers."
The joint framework will allow students selected under AcSIR’s PhD programme to conduct research at MoES institutes under the supervision of MoES scientists recognised as AcSIR faculty. AcSIR will award the doctoral degree, explicitly referencing the host institute on the degree certificate.
All ten institutes are participating in AcSIR's latest PhD enrolment cycle, the statement noted. Nodal AcSIR coordinators have been appointed at each institute alongside a Central Coordinator at MoES to streamline academic operations.
The collaboration opens doctoral opportunities in specialised fields of earth system sciences, including weather forecasting and climate services, numerical weather prediction, polar and cryosphere research, ocean observation and marine robotics, deep-sea mining and desalination, seismology and earthquake hazard assessment, coastal processes, marine living resources, and AI/ML applications in earth sciences.
Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) generated from research shall ensure crediting the student as inventor, while joint intellectual property being shared mutually.
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