India and ICTP Set Up Co-operation Fund at Trieste

India has taken a formal step to put its long association with the International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP) on an institutional footing. The two sides have begun an India-ICTP Co-operation Fund, meant to deepen the engagement of Indian researchers with the centre and to support their movement to and from it.

Where it was signed

A Letter of Intent was signed between the Department of Science and Technology (DST) and ICTP. The signing took place at the centre in Trieste, Italy, during a visit by Dr Jitendra Singh, Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Science and Technology and Earth Sciences. From the Indian side the document was exchanged by Dr Praveenkumar Somasundaram, who heads International Cooperation in the department. The visit to ICTP was part of the minister's official tour of Italy, which ran from 11 to 15 November 2026.

What the fund is for

The fund is designed to give a settled structure to work that has been going on for years without one. Its stated purpose is to widen the opportunities open to Indian scientists, researchers and students at the centre, and to strengthen the researcher mobility part of the partnership. Dr Jitendra Singh said he expected the arrangement to give the existing engagement greater impact, and underlined the value of making a long-running association institutional so that scientific collaboration and the exchange of researchers both gain momentum.

About the centre

ICTP is one of the world's leading centres for advanced research, higher education and capacity building in physics, mathematics and allied fields. Its ties with India run across joint research, academic exchange, workshops and training activities involving a number of Indian institutions.

How India works with ICTP

• DST, CSIR, leading universities and the Indian Institutes of Technology have all collaborated with the centre through joint research, workshops and exchange programmes.
• Indian researchers draw on the centre's visiting fellowships, diploma programmes and postdoctoral positions.
• Experts from ICTP work with Indian scientific groups in high-energy physics, astrophysics, climate modelling and computational science.

The collaboration has helped build global networks of scientific excellence, bringing institutions and researchers together behind both fundamental discovery and work with a direct social use. With the Letter of Intent and the new fund in place, the researcher mobility strand of the relationship is expected to grow.