UNSW, Manipal Academy select first 10 joint grant participants

The University of New South Wales (UNSW), Sydney and Manipal Academy of Higher Education have announced the first 10 joint grant recipients who would receive $20,000 each as part of a collaborative research seed funding scheme between the two universities.

The UNSW and MAHE jointly committed $5 million (Australian dollars) in joint funding in August this year, which saw 44 UNSW-MAHE joint applications from across seven UNSW faculties, the universities said in a statement.

Among the winners of the grant is a project to improve women's safety in public spaces and another on the development of novel anti-fibrotic nanoformulations for the treatment of oral submucous fibrosis.

"I am excited by the potential of the MAHE-UNSW partnership. These new grants will help academics at both universities bring the collaboration to life. They will link brilliant minds to jointly address complex and important global research challenges," said UNSW President and Vice-Chancellor Professor Ian Jacobs.

The first UNSW-MAHE partnership was established in December 2018.

"The two-way engagement between the two premier institutes would transform the lives of the students' and academics, build capacity in higher education based on joint research, prepare them for a better future and promote strong India and Australia relations," said Dr H Vinod Bhat, VC, MAHE.

Dr Vipul Agarwal, UNSW Engineering and Dr Manasa Nune, Manipal Institute of Regenerative Medicine, won $20,000 grant for research on 3D multifunctional nanofibrous scaffolds for nerve regeneration while Dr Sridhar Ravi, UNSW Canberra and Dr Mohammed Zuber, Manipal Department of Aeronautical and Automobile Engineering, won the grant for bio-inspired solutions towards small scale flight.

Dr Pankaj Sharma, UNSW Science and Rajendra BV, Manipal Department of Physics, are developing lead-free wurtzite piezoelectrics for sustainable applications in energy harvesting and electronics while Dr Anshu Gupta, UNSW Science and Debbijoy Bhattacharya, Manipal Center for Natural Sciences, are studying relativistic jets powered by supermassive blackholes using multi-band observation and modelling.

( With inputs from IANS )