‘The rest of the world realised from Chandrayaan how you do science without being wasteful’

In 2023, the Association of American Universities formed a task force on expanding United States-India university partnerships with the idea of exploring how research institutions in both countries can work together to expand bilateral research and partnerships in higher education. A report released by the task force identified five high-impact areas of collaboration, including semiconductor technology and manufacturing, sustainable agriculture and food security, sustainable energy and the environment, health equity and pandemic preparedness, and other critical and emerging technologies such as advanced materials, telecommunications, artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, and quantum science. Kumar, who grew up in Bengaluru and is an alumnus of the Indian Institute of Science, spoke to The Hindu on the AAU task force, what the research communities in India and the US could learn from each other and how the larger science community could benefit from cross-border collaborations. Tell us a bit about AAU’s India task force AAU is a collection of 70 universities. Therefore, the focus of the India task force is on research and, in particular, on genuine kind of long-lasting collaborations in key research areas between the AAU member institutions and some of the Indian institutions like IISc and IITs.