India and Canada will soon begin collaborative research innovation projects in the area of 'Water for health' focused on the development and evaluation of new technologies in various areas including monitoring and management of water borne or water related diseases using mobile or networked health technologies.

The Department of Biotechnology (DBT) and IC-IMPACTS Centres of Excellence, Canada, are the implementing organisations from the Indian and Canadian sides respectively. IC-IMPACTS Centres of Excellence is a not-for-profit organisation established by the Federal Government of Canada through the Networks of Centres of Excellence Programme to serve as a pan-Canadian agency responsible for the delivery of research programs in the areas of safe and sustainable infrastructure, integrated water management, and public health: disease prevention and treatment between Canada and India.

The programme will support collaborative research projects focused on the development and evaluation of new technologies in the areas of monitoring and management of water borne or water related diseases using mobile or networked health technologies; waste water treatment and impacts on water quality; water purification bio-technologies; heavy metals identification using bio-sensors; and sustainable waste-water infrastructure and management using bio-technologies.

Potential projects will be funded by IC-IMPACTS in Canada, and by DBT in India. The joint projects must meet the requirements of the funding organizations. In India, the general funding terms of DBT will be applied. In Canada, the general funding terms of IC-IMPACTS and the tri-agency granting councils of Canada will be applied.

The DBT IC-IMPACTS partnership has been designed to strengthen existing, and stimulate new, innovation collaborations between researchers working in India and Canada and to stimulate entrepreneurial deployment of research outcomes into community contexts. Through this collaboration, IC-IMPACTS and DBT will support the innovation communities of Canada and India by each committing $1.5 million (Canadian dollars/equivalent Indian Rupees) to the joint funding of collaborative research projects submitted through this joint call for proposals.

The partnership between DBT and IC-IMPACTS aims to achieve the objectives such as to foster international research and innovation partnerships focused on initiatives that will have direct, deployable outcomes and technologies to benefit citizens in communities in India and Canada; and to showcase Canadian and Indian research and industrial innovation to each nation and accelerate the transfer of knowledge and technologies.