India, with almost 1.4 billion people the second most populous country and the largest democracy in the world, has developed rapidly over the past decades. India plays a key role in the fight against climate change. In the area of science and technology in particular, there have been long and intensive relationships with Germany and the TU Dresden. Students from India belong to the largest groups of international students at TU Dresden (385 in the year 2020). There are lively interdisciplinary collaborations with several Indian universities and research institutions in Bangalore, Chennai, Mandi and New Delhi, respectively. The cooperation is to be expanded even further in the future. On August 20, 2021, the Counselor for Science & Technology of the Indian Embassy in Germany, Dr. Madhusudan Reddy Nandineni, was visiting TU Dresden to exchange ideas about current and future joint projects.

Current cooperation projects (selection)

Global Water and Climate Adaptation Center (ABCD Centre)

TU Dresden (School of Civil and Environmental Engineering) and RWTH Aachen with partners from the Indian Institute of Technology Madras (Chennai, India), the Asian Institute of Technology (Bangkok, Thailand), and theInstitute for Integrated Management of Material Fluxes and of Resources der United Nations University (UNU-FLORES) in Dresden are jointly setting up a “Global Water and Climate Adaptation Center”. The ABCD Center (after the first letters of the four participating locations) will deal with climate adaptation measures in the Global South, especially in the water sector. Scientists will work closely together in three thematic clusters across disciplines:

• Water security, water resource management, safe water supply, and water treatment
• Ecosystem Resilience and Nature-Based Adaptation Measures
• Transfer Strategies: Traditional knowledge, local economies, and social acceptance

The new Global Center not only promotes the mobility of young researchers and provides scholarships for master’s and doctoral students, but also conceives and develops a new joint international course on the subject of “Water Security and Global Change”.

© Crispin-Iven Mokry

COMPOLL: Combating environmental pollution through the internationalization of education in Germany and India

With the ever-growing population, minimizing the impact of human activity on the environment is becoming a critical issue. In particular, noise, air and water pollution, and waste management have become one of the greatest global challenges that humanity has ever faced. Dealing with this task requires extensive cross-border cooperation between societies with their different stages of development, their linguistic diversity, and their cultural background, as well as their local problems and convictions.

The DAAD project "COMPOLL: Combating environmental pollution through the internationalization of education in Germany and India" aims at a better understanding of the challenges, deficits, and possible solutions with regard to environmental awareness in Germany and India. The application and cooperation partners are the Institute for Lightweight Engineering and Polymer Technology at the TU Dresden and the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi. The project has two goals in particular: to raise awareness of topics such as reducing plastic waste, recycling, or sustainable design strategies, as well as strengthening the partnership between the TU Dresden and the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi.

Heritage-Network

The Indian-European Heritage Network aims to promote university cooperation between Europe and India in the field of engineering. The TU Dresden is currently the only German university active in the Heritage network, Prof. Ercan Altinsoy is a member of the Steering & Executive Committee (SEC). The aim of the network is to further develop academic and scientific exchanges in the fields of engineering, science, design and technology between Europe and India.

Contact at the International Office of TU Dresden
Peter Rosenbaum
Tel. +49 351 46337571