Deadline: 13-Jun-23
The Indian Department of Science and Technology has launched the Water Disaster Management Program to focus on generating impactful scientific knowledge and practical and innovative solutions that can benefit both science and society.
The Dutch Research Council (NWO), through the Merian Fund and the Indian Department of Science and Technology (DST) aim to stimulate long-term research collaboration between their two countries by funding joint research, to strengthen the international position and potential for global impact of their research. Funding is provided for interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary consortia of Indian and Dutch research groups and stakeholder partners, for high quality research that has the potential for societal and scientific impact.
NWO and DST have agreed on a strategic knowledge and innovation agenda. Funded research should be in alignment with national research agendas, as well as international initiatives such as the UN Sustainable Development Goals, and build bridges between different actors in the knowledge chain, fundamental and applied research, and scientific disciplines. The theme for this year’s call is ‘Water Disaster Management’.
Objectives
- Proposals should address one or more of the following objectives:
- To develop scientific understanding and technical solutions to address the challenges related to both the floods and drought situations emerging in both India and the Netherlands that have significant societal impacts.
- New low-cost sensor technology for monitoring and modelling of floods and drought.
- Identification of indicators for flood and drought using remote sensing technology.
- Quantification of climate change impacts on both floods and droughts with associated uncertainties using various Internet of Things and modelling-based tools.
- Flood and drought modelling using high resolution remote sensing data (spatially as well as temporally, collected using both space and aerial platforms) bringing focus on innovative technologies for operational implementation, such as flood early warning systems for urban floods through citizen science (crowd sourcing), cost-effective monitoring solutions.
- To develop social and governance innovations necessary for the implementation of new technologies and acceleration of uptake.
Aim
- The collaborative research financed by DST and NWO in this Call for proposals is intended to work towards scientific knowledge and viable, innovative solutions for high scientific and societal impact. They do this by inviting consortia in which researchers from knowledge institutions from both countries will work with partners from public, semi-public and private organisations (for-profit and not-for-profit), in order to increase the societal relevance and impact of their research.
- The collaborative research should work towards scientific knowledge and innovative solutions in the field of water disaster management, in order to contribute to realising and supporting resilient societies. Innovative solutions may focus on new data assimilation techniques and utilisation of new remote sensing products. The latter could include new low-cost sensor monitoring to capture the flash floods (urban floods), hill city water disasters, as well as drought monitoring.
- Applicants are expected to identify sites for flood and drought in both countries using a few model sites in India and a few in the Netherlands.
Thematic Focus
- Emphasis of this call is on implementation science supporting technical solutions for flood and drought management in the same built-up area, taking into account the impact of climate change and addressing the need for acceleration of the implementation of measures. Approaches are sought for implementation, technology deployment, assessment and management of measures, where lessons from the India and Dutch experience could inform the setup of tailored approaches for both countries.
- Guiding principles of this call are:
- Proposals should address measures to reduce the social, financial and environmental impacts by floods and droughts in (the same) built-up area(s).
- Proposals should address how they contribute to the acceleration of the implementation of the proposed solutions.
- It should be possible to operate, maintain and implement/deploy the solution in a climate-neutral way, with adequate adaptation measures, based on a climate risk assessment.
- Guiding principles of this call are:
- Examples of research this call is interested in are:
- Increase lead times and the extent of the impact
- Spatial planning of the subsurface and groundwater
- Water quality during extreme events
Funding Information
- The available budget for this Call for proposals is € 2,100,000 at NWO, and Rs. 12.00 crores (approximately € 1,350,000) at DST. A maximum of € 700,000 can be applied for per project at NWO. A maximum of Rs. 4.0 crores (approximately € 450,000) can be applied for per project at DST. Within this Call for proposals it is expected that a maximum of 3 proposals, with a maximum duration of 3 years each, will be awarded funding.
Project Sites
- Urban floods in cities such as Chennai and/or Bangalore may be taken up as pilot studies while riverine floods in Ganga, Krishna, Periyar and Narmada may be taken up as pilot studies of riverine and coastal flooding. Similarly, Dutch cities such as, e.g., Nijmegen, Maastricht and Dordrecht could be identified in the Netherlands for pilot studies for flood management. They are of special interest for the combination of riverine and pluvial flooding.
- The Marathwada region (in Maharashtra) and the Saurashtra region (in Gujarat) may be taken up as pilot studies in India towards technology development for mitigating the impacts of droughts. Similarly, e.g., the provinces of Limburg and Noord Brabant in the Netherlands, can be identified for pilot study sites for drought management.
- In the Netherlands regions such as, e.g., Midden Delfland with the cities of The Hague and Delft and the Veluwe with the city of Arnhem may be taken up as areas for pilot studies on both flood and drought management.
Eligibility Criteria
- Eligible consortia are composed of researchers based in the Netherlands and in India, with active involvement in the project of a senior main applicant on both the Dutch and the Indian side, as well as a Dutch co-applicant from a different organisation than the main applicant and an Indian coapplicant. The consortium must also include a collaboration partner from a public, semi-public or private practitioner organisation (for-profit or not-for-profit).
- Dutch side: Full, associate and assistant professors and other researchers with a comparable position may submit an application if they have a tenured position (and therefore a paid position for an indefinite period) or a tenure track agreement at one of the following organisations:
- Universities located in the Kingdom of the Netherlands; University medical centres; Institutes affiliated to the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW) or NWO; Netherlands Cancer Institute; The Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics in Nijmegen; Naturalis Biodiversity Center; Advanced Research Centre for NanoLithography (ARCNL); Princess Máxima Center.
- Indian side: For Indian scientists, DST requires the main applicant to be:
- A researcher working in regular position in a recognized academic institution or public funded R&D institution/laboratory, based in India, and have an employment contract for at least the duration of the application procedure and the duration of the research the grant is applied for, have at least a PhD or an equivalent qualification.
For more information, visit Indian Department of Science and Technology.