Budding Indian Scientists to Benefit from New Ramanujan Scheme in London
London: The new Ramanujan Young Investigators programme, supported by India’s Department of Science and Technology (DST), will bring some of the country’s brightest young theoretical physicists and mathematicians to the London Institute of Mathematical Sciences (LIMS) for collaborative research.
The program, announced following Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s recent visit to India, is named in honor of the famous Indian mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan’s friendship with British mathematician GH Hardy.
This collaboration brought Ramanujan to England in 1913; their shared understanding now occupied a central place in modern mathematics.
LIMS Director Dr. “Our Ramanujan Young Researchers program will serve as a bridge for the exchange of talents between the two superpowers of science,” said Thomas Fink.
“Ramanujan’s work with Hardy transformed the mathematical sciences. This, together with the success of our fellowships for theorists from Russia and Ukraine, inspired us to welcome some of India’s brightest minds to join us in our rooms at the Royal Institution,” he said.
The campaign to secure government support was led by India’s High Commissioner to the United Kingdom, Vikram Doraiswami, with the support of Professor Krishnaswamy Vijayraghavan, former chief scientific advisor to the Government of India.
“The story of Hardy and Ramanujan reminds us that science progresses through friendship and dialogue, not through isolation,” Doraiswami said.
The first phase of the programme, funded by DST, will consist of Ramanujan Young Visitors, or Indian PhD students, initially selected from the Jawaharlal Nehru Center for Advanced Scientific Research (JNCASR) to work for several months at the LIMS house at the Royal Institution in Mayfair, London.
These ‘visitors’ will attend lectures and participate in research with scientists at LIMS.
The program will initially offer an opportunity to up to six PhD students from JNCASR to spend a few months at LIMS, and the scheme is planned to be expanded in subsequent years to attract the best young theoretical physics and mathematics students from across India.
In the second phase, the program will be expanded to include Ramanujan Youth Scholarships. Open to candidates from across India in the early postdoctoral years, these positions will bring talented young Indian physicists and mathematicians to work at LIMS. They will have the chance to build connections with colleagues in Britain over three transformative years.
LIMS, a research organization dedicated to accelerating discovery, is in the process of raising funds for these Ramanujan Junior Fellowships.
Headquartered at the Royal Institution, the institute focuses on peak performance and full-time research and lays claim to several Nobel prizes, as well as the discovery of 10 chemical elements and the principles of electromagnetism.
