INDIA: Second Max Planck research centre opened

Germany's Max Planck Society, a world leader in basic science research, last week officially opened a new centre in India on lipids research in collaboration with the National Centre for Biological Sciences in Bangalore, as part of the German organisation's global expansion.

While the research performance of India's universities has been seen to be lagging globally, the new Max Planck Centre is an indication that the country's top-level science institutions are able to attract the interest of prestigious partners.

This is Max Planck's second research centre in the country. The Max Planck Centre for Computer Science at the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, was opened last year with around UER6 million (US$8 million) in research funding from Germany and EUR2 million from India's Department of Science and Technology over five years.

The new centre in Bangalore aims to boost research in lipidomics, a branch of molecular biology, "from its present early stage to the level needed to play a major role in biomedical research," said Max Planck President Peter Gruss, at the opening in Bangalore on Thursday.

"We envisage creating new opportunities in medicine and drug development, enabling novel approaches for combating human diseases."

Max Planck has almost 50 international research schools offering postgraduate research studies as well as a partner institute in Shanghai and collaborations in South Korea.

But India has emerged as a key priority for basic research. Some 50 collaborative projects in blue skies research and basic science have been set up between the society and Indian research institutions.

"From the many young talents in India, we want to foster the very best here and help to integrate them into the international scientific community. Through such activities the Max Planck Society is attempting to make a contribution to the development of India as a knowledge society," Gruss said.

Max Planck is a prestigious research organisation, with around 80 research institutes in Germany, others elsewhere in Europe and one in Florida in the US. Some 32 Nobel Prizes have been awarded to its scientists over the decades.