Fourth All Science and Technology Clusters Meet in Chandigarh

Ajay Kumar Sood, Principal Scientific Adviser to the Government of India, chaired the Fourth All Science and Technology (S&T) Clusters Meet at Panjab University, Chandigarh. The two-day meeting was held on 9 and 10 October 2026 and was hosted by PI-RAHI, the PU-IIT Ropar Regional Accelerator for Holistic Innovations Foundation. Representatives of all eight S&T Clusters took part, along with Scientific Secretary Parvinder Maini and Vishal Choudhary, Scientist-F in the Office of the Principal Scientific Adviser.

What the chair said

Prof. Sood described the clusters as integrated ecosystems that now take on regional, industrial and societal problems, and said they increasingly work as National Technology Accelerators. He pressed for closer collaboration between clusters, wider participation by stakeholders, better coordination with RuTAG and RSVCs, and greater visibility for the technologies they produce. He also pointed to their growing reach abroad, including the 12 international memoranda of understanding that followed the First International Conference on S&T Clusters, and later tie-ups with the University of Western Australia, the India-Australia Smart Farm Network and the UK Catapult Network. He announced that a second International Conference on S&T Clusters will be held.

What was launched

• An Automatic Weather Station, for climate-smart and data-driven farming
• An EV charging station in Himachal Pradesh, built by DRIIV with PI-RAHI
• The EVChargex battery swapping station at Panchkula, taking indigenous swapping technology from pilot to commercial use
• A report on Phycotree, a microalgal photobioreactor developed through DRIIV, with talks under way with GMR for use at New Delhi's IGI Airport
• The Kalaanubhav portal of PI-RAHI, which carries crafts and products of artisans from Punjab and Jammu and Kashmir
• SPARKS 2.0, IGNITE 2.0, GINI 2.0 and the reports on the science, technology and innovation ecosystem of Northern India

A first for Northern India

On the second day Prof. Sood opened a Digital Podiatric Clinic at the Panjab University Health Centre in Chandigarh, set up by PI-RAHI under a corporate social responsibility partnership with HL Klemove. Described as Northern India's first such clinic, it uses artificial-intelligence-powered foot screening to catch diabetic foot trouble early. The meet also announced a UK Catapults collaboration with the clusters in healthcare, emerging technologies and net-zero technologies.

The eight clusters

Presentations were made by the Pune Knowledge Cluster Foundation, the Jodhpur City Knowledge and Innovation Foundation, the Bhubaneswar City Knowledge and Innovation Cluster, Delhi Research Implementation and Innovation (DRIIV), the AMTZ-Vizag Cluster, the Bengaluru Science and Technology Cluster, the Research and Innovation Circle of Hyderabad and PI-RAHI. The S&T Clusters programme was conceived in 2020 on the recommendation of the Prime Minister's Science, Technology and Innovation Advisory Council (PM-STIAC) and is run by the Office of the Principal Scientific Adviser.