Blog by Ruth Welters.
On Tuesday 14 October 2014 I went to the launch of the EU-India Social Sciences and Humanities Platform (EQUIP)* in Delhi.
Despite only having had one hour’s sleep on the night flight, I really enjoyed the afternoon roundtable discussions involving Indian social science & humanities researchers and EU funders of research. People made the points that India is a young country and is making the most of it, but has development needs for example in education and health. Social science needs to play a part in this. To fully utilise the human potential (and this is huge with over 1.2 Billion people in India, and estimates around the table of maybe 14 million people living in Delhi), India needs to find a way to maintain growth alongside human wellbeing, with an aspiration for ‘peace, prosperity, growth and wellbeing’.
I found this approach really inspiring and from a communications perspective, I am still getting to grips with the sheer numbers of people involved in meeting these aspirations!
*EQUIP is a €1.5 million project funded by the European Commission to bring together research funders and support organisations in Europe and India in order to develop a stronger strategic partnership in social sciences and humanities.
The platform aims to support research agencies across Europe and India in international collaboration: through sharing best practice, networking and closer coordination of existing collaborative activities and the establishment of new relationships.
Read more about the EQUIP programme on the ESRC website.
Ruth Welters
Dr Ruth Welters was the Communications and Impact Manager for the Nexus Network.
