India launches EChO Network: Know here how it will help synergise efforts for environment protection
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New Delhi, December 20: EChO Network, a national program with the objectives to provide a template for cross-disciplinary leadership in India with the specific focus of increasing research, knowledge, and awareness of Indian ecology and the environment was launched yesterday in New Delhi by Prof. K Vijay Raghavan, Principal Scientific Adviser to the Govt of India.
The initiative has drawn in partners from Government, industry and academia, with the Office of the Principal Scientific Adviser to the Govt of India steering the program under the guidance of Prof. Shannon Olsson, Director, EChO Network.
Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Hindustan Unilever Limited, RoundGlass, India Climate Collaborative, Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE), and Centre for Cellular and Molecular Platforms (C-CAMP) are the founding partners of the EChO Network.
Importance:
India faces unprecedented threats to its human environmental and ecosystems, solving which requires a confluence of India’s strong technological expertise and knowledge of the natural world itself. EChO Network would develop a national network to catalyse a new generation of Indians who can synthesize interdisciplinary concepts and tackle real-world problems in medicine, agriculture, ecology, and technology.
"India has recently embarked on a number of national-level efforts to promote ecological and environmental research on the subcontinent; however, there remains a lacuna of trained scientists with interdisciplinary skills and collaborative mindset. We need to train a new generation of educators and students who can identify and solve problems in an interdisciplinary manner and who can listen to our natural world and tackle real-world problems in medicine, agriculture, ecology, and technology and I am convinced this network will inspire an entirely new approach to Indian education and exploration necessary for the post-technological world," - Prof. Vijay Raghavan, Principal Scientific Adviser, Govt of India
With no precedent for such a network anywhere in the world, EChO Network establishes a new platform to change how science is embedded in our modern society. Through interactive sessions with citizens, industry, academia, and the government, the Network will identify gaps in knowledge regarding selected topics in human and environmental ecosystems.
The program will train postdoctoral leaders in research and outreach on these topics, while also incorporating current public and private efforts into a national network. It would then go on to establishing nation-wide awareness in these issues through public discourse and education for citizens, industry, and government with information exchange at all educational levels.
"This is a mission of hope! Throughout my career in India, I have met countless individuals working hard to make a positive difference for Indian ecosystems. The purpose of this Network is to bring all those together to share knowledge and synergize efforts under the umbrella of science. In order to do this, we need leaders who are trained to communicate across different sectors of society, this is the goal of the EChO Network" - Prof. Olsson
Over time EChO Network intends to create an international distributed institute comprising individuals housed within industry, government, private, and academic sectors, combining their expertise and resources collectively to tackle large scale problems.