GUWAHATI, May 13 - In an ambitious partnership aimed at seeding the growth of the next generation of astrophysicists in Asia, UK�s prestigious University of Southampton and Pune-based Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics (IUCAA) have joined hands to engage hundreds of students in a series of scientific workshops, training camps and study groups across universities in India and Nepal. The �SITARE Project�, which means �stars� in Hindi and is short for the Southampton-IUCAA Training for Astronomical Research and Education, was launched through a workshop at Assam�s Tezpur University from May 2-4. The first workshop saw a participation of 46 MSc students from various educational institutions of Assam, Nagaland, Meghalaya, Manipur and Arunachal Pradesh. This was stated in a press release.
SITARE is a capacity building initiative. Funded by the Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF), the Project will target students from all corners of India and one university in Nepal with an aim to address the UN�s global Sustainable Development Goal for Quality Education. {The Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF) is a �1.5 billion fund announced by the UK Government in late 2015 to support cutting-edge research that addresses the challenges faced by developing countries.}
Professor Phil Charles, a former head of department at the University of Southampton, represented the University at the inaugural SITARE workshop in Assam. He said, �I am delighted with the very high level of enthusiasm and engagement of the students I encountered. They are all determined to use this unique opportunity as a stepping stone to a potential career in science and astrophysics. I appreciate their willingness to learn and would like to wish them all the best for their future endeavours.�
During the three-day long workshop, lectures were given by eminent academicians and researchers from University of Southampton, IUCAA and Tezpur University on a host of topics like �ASTROSAT and SALT, world-class telescopes for the 21st century�, �Black holes in the Universe�, �World of galaxies�, �Binary stars � the sky is full of them� and �Dirty Cosmos�, among others.
Prof Rupjyoti Gogoi of Tezpur University remarked, �Tezpur University and IUCAA have had a long association on collaborative research and in holding different levels of workshops directed towards the North-East region. However, this workshop is special for us because it had an international component with the partnership of University of Southampton. The GCRF funding paved an excellent opportunity for the students to interact with Prof Phil Charles and get a first-hand experience of the options available to them globally, especially in India and through their international collaboration with South Africa, to do higher research in Astrophysics.�
Students who participated in this workshop received a certificate of attendance. Selected students will get an opportunity to attend a more advanced SITARE workshop to be held at IUCAA Pune in November 2018. Some students from the Pune workshop will be chosen based on merit to visit University of Southampton for an excellent international exposure, constituting a short research project, outreach activities and interactions with international peers.
The programme will then be sustained by asking the students to form study groups within their universities. The career paths of individuals under the project will also be tracked and evaluated so that SITARE can be refined and expanded in future years.
Explaining about the project, Dr Poshak Gandhi, who is an Associate Professor at University of Southampton�s Department of Physics and Astronomy and is leading the SITARE project alongside IUCAA, said, �India is developing world-leading research projects and has the potential to be a future scientific powerhouse; however, this will only happen with commensurate investment in training for next generation scientists.�
Dr Gandhi further said, �The UK has expertise at the forefront of this field and the University of Southampton is a leader in time-domain astrophysics and is also involved in the cutting-edge Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory (LIGO) project. Through SITARE, I hope that we can generate some inspirational knowledge transfer, create interactions with leading role models and support potential future research �stars� in astrophysics and other STEM subjects.�
After Tezpur University, the SITARE workshops will be held at the Tribhuvan University in Kathmandu (Nepal) in June 2018 and at Chhattisgarh-based Raipur University in August 2018.