UK-India Centre of Excellence in NGNs

BackgroundDuring three multi-segment visits to India, Professor Gerard Parr will visit Institutes of Technology in Madras-Chennai, Delhi, Bangalore, Bombay and the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore. The purpose of the visits are three-fold in order to:-.(i) develop parallel research proposals on NGN Management to the Indian Department of Science & Technology and EPSRC with Professors Timothy Gonsalves and Mani Subramanian (IIT Madras).(ii) develop plans for future collaborations on architectures and protocols for resource-constrained SLA-convergence in NGNs, taking into account e2e requirements across the fixed-wireless boundaries. This will be between Professor Kumar (IISc Bangalore), Prof Asoke Talukder (IIIT Bangalore) and Professor U.B. Desai (IIT Bombay) and Professor Surendra Prasad (IIT Delhi). (iii) build upon previous and existing collaborations between UK and India to assist in the investigation and development a unique consortium-based research and technology-transfer Centre of Excellence in NGNs/ICT.Leading on from (iii), as a result of an excellent workshop event in Madras, the challenge now is to maintain the momentum with all the interested academics and industrial players who participated in the discussions and technical presentations and to develop an agreed programme of work that will represent the interest of the UK and Indian consortium that was established. The intention is that the programme will help identify and develop priority research areas and seek out relevant funding mechanisms to actively encourage leading researchers and companies to pursue innovative research and technology transfer. Such a research aganda will power the next generation of communications technology and usher in a new era of ICT research and technology transfer between Britain and India, the world's second fastest growing economy. This is very much in keeping with the recent 2006 Budget Statement from the UK government to ensure the UK can maintain its goal as a competitive centre for global investment in technology-led sectors .Context for ProposalPreviously, the Technical Workshop (as evidenced in the appendices) was developed, planned and organised by Professor Parr on behalf of the EPSRC/British High Commission in India in response to a desire to further academic research and technology transfer collaboration between the UK and India. The proposal was based on previous meetings and discussions organised during British High Commission (Delhi) UK-India ICT visits (8th-14th January 2005) and subsequently. These visits included top research Institutes of Technology (Delhi, Bangalore, Chennai) and key companies in the ICT sector within India, including Wipro, InfoSys and Sasken Communications. The background to these visits was to determine the level of interest and capability to develop a more in-depth UK-India collaborative effort in ICT, particularly concerning the fixed-wireless interface and its management. For the past twelve months under the invitation of EPSRC and the British High Commission in Delhi, Professor Parr has established a UK-India advisory group which has been formulating the development plan between the two nations. In the activity, Professor Parr has been designated the UK Consortium Academic Lead.