“Imperial Global India is a new initiative which will bring together collectively all the separate interactions that we currently have between researchers and students.”
Dr Elena Dieckmann and Professor Sanjeev Gupta are the Academic Co-Directors of Imperial’s Global India Hub* which launched in May 2025.
Dr Elena Dieckmann is a Lecturer in the Dyson School of Design Engineering whose research covers the recycling of unconventional and difficult waste materials, such as feather and mining waste.
Elena has collaborated on several projects in India, including an ongoing piece of work with Professor Monto Mani, Indian Institute of Science, looking at the upcycling of photovoltaic panels. She has also supported several PhD students on exchange programmes between India and the UK.
Professor Sanjeev Gupta is Professor of Earth Sciences in the Department of Earth Science and Engineering, with a research focus on how landscapes have changed over time. His work covers diverse topics including marine geology, archaeology and planetary science.
Sanjeev was born in the city of Agra and moved to the UK as a child. He has many family members still living in India, with whom he is very close, and he maintains several professional partnerships in the country. He is currently collaborating with researchers at IIT Kanpur on a project about flood hazards in the Ganga basin and has facilitated several student exchanges between the institutions.
Two-way exchange programmes
Sanjeev is excited about what we can learn from India about research and innovation, and the development of exchange programmes between the two countries. He said: “Imperial Global India is a new initiative which will bring together collectively all the separate interactions that we currently have between researchers and students between Imperial and India.
“There’s a great potential for us to combine different ways of thinking about solving problems for humanity, as well as providing opportunities for students to learn about living and working in a different country.”
Elena added that India has a huge pool of talent, with over 1.5 million engineers graduating each year, and said it’s essential to engage with them and develop a strong, two-way exchange of talent. “We want to create a new paradigm for scientific leadership, where researchers and innovators are comfortable moving between different contexts and creating impactful innovation.”
Elena said that she sees the hub as a gateway to combine efforts and make it easier to work with the scientific ecosystem in India, adding that the hub will support the establishment of new infrastructures for existing and new links with industry. “We’re keen to link up in the fields of AI, healthcare and climate science. We already have some strong links with industry in India, for example the Tata Steel partnership, and it’s important that we build on this work to create value for companies who will be working with us in the future.”
Connect with the hub
Elena and Sanjeev are encouraging the Imperial community to contact them if they’re working with partners in India or are planning a research trip to the country. As well as creating a map of existing projects, the hub can help with connecting colleagues to different stakeholder networks and ensuring research trips are as relevant as possible.
The hub can also support with navigating the funding landscape, matchmaking for project, connecting with local research ecosystems and supporting with student-facing engagements.
Applications are open for the Imperial Global Connect Fund, with deadlines in June, July and September, and the India Connect Fund (deadline on 29 June). The Global Fellows Fund will open for applications soon
Sanjeev said that international collaborations are an excellent opportunity to solve new and interesting problems.
“When you work with people outside Imperial and the UK, you interact with different skills sets and ideas, and you’re truly able to try new things. You also build strong friendships, which helps facilitate collaborations – in the last few weeks I’ve had an endless stream of collaborators coming to visit me in London and it’s great, it’s a lot of fun.”
Elena added that the hub is planning to host immersion visits, exchanges, webinars and some seminars too, with further details of these to be shared at a later date. In the meantime, colleagues can contact the hub directly.
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*Pending the completion of regulatory formalities to be able to set up our own liaison office, Imperial Global India will initially be managed by a service provider duly appointed by Imperial College London.