SALIENT’s Richard Kirkham joined a small delegation of UK academics on a 3-day visit to Delhi where he participated in a workshop being held in partnership with the Economic and Social Research Council and the Indian Council for Social Science Research (ICSSR) to discuss priority areas within the overarching theme of ‘Prosperous and Resilient Futures’.
The aim of the visit is to shape a new model of collaboration, including a potential UK-India research call. The workshop was held in Delhi on the 23-25 September 2024 and commenced with dinner at the British High Commission, hosted by the Deputy High Commissioner for India, Christina Scott
ESRC and ICSSR have a long-standing relationship of working together to enhance understanding of joint research priorities, promote networks between social scientists from UK and India, stimulate the development of collaborative research activity between researchers in both countries, promote impact from joint research activity and to promote appropriate opportunities for collaborative research activity to be supported.
Alongside the overarching theme, ‘Technological Futures’ and ‘Public Services’ are considered as sub-themes. Within these the following priority areas have been identified:
- Being human in the 21st Century – How is humanity and society changing, adapting and evolving as a result of rapid technological progress, and what do we need to thrive in the 21st Century? How can we ensure that young people have the right tools and opportunities to live a healthy and purposeful life? What can be done to prevent technological advancement exacerbating inequalities and ensure the benefits are equitable?
- Action on Polycrises – The term polycrises is a relatively new one, but essentially describes a multiplicity of intersecting crises, that can be concurrent and cascading. Often the intersectionality of the crises is complex such that direct causation is difficult to identify, and may not even exist, hence finding and addressing the root cause is not possible. As such, each crisis is tackled individually rather than as a system, network or confusion of crises. In a complex world where no one solution can be targeted at one problem then multiple disciplines need to focus on the unintended consequences. Solutions may then become bigger than the sum of the parts.
- Technological Futures – The opportunities and challenges posed by the rapid pace of technological development and change are well understood to be a social science challenge as well as a technological one. The role of technology in improving or undermining trust is particularly of interest as well as technology and inequalities and value creation.
SALIENT is the UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) funded ‘Building a secure and resilient world: research and co-ordination hub’. We are a collaboration of the universities of Manchester, Bath, Exeter, and Sussex. Our work focuses on national security and resilience through a human-centred systems approach. www.salient-hub.org
UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) India plays a key role in enhancing the research and innovation collaboration between the UK and India. Since 2008, UKRI India has facilitated funding commitment close to £400 million between the UK, India and third parties. This collaboration supports more than 260 individual projects, funded by over 15 funding agencies, bringing together more than 220 lead institutions from the UK and India. These projects have generated more than £450 million in further funding, mainly from public bodies but also from non-profit organisations and commercial entities, attesting the relevance of these projects. UKRI India
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