An agreement signed between ICTP and India's Department of Science and Technology offers an important example of the evolving relationship between the Centre and the countries ICTP serves.

India's Enhanced Co-operation

On 25 November, a delegation from India's Department of Science and Technology (DST), led by secretary V.S. Ramamurthy, visited the ICTP campus in Trieste. Ramamurthy and members of the delegation, including Sadhana Relia, director of DST's International Division, and B.A. Dasannacharya, chairperson of DST's Expert Committee for Beamlines Utilization at Elettra (Trieste's synchrotron facility), visited the Centre to meet the section heads and tour the library and computer facilities.

Each year, several high-level delegations from the developing countries visit the Centre to learn more about its training and research activities and facilities. But this visit was different. In many ways, it symbolises the Centre's evolving relationship with the developing world's more advanced countries.

The main purpose of the visit was to sign a five-year agreement of "enhanced co-operation" between India's Department of Science and Technology and the Centre in which the DST agreed "to support 20 study visits of Indian mathematicians and theoretical physicists every year to participate in ICTP activities."

The agreement, similar to those that the Centre has with Brazil and China, will cost India between US$25,000 and US$30,000 annually. The funds will be used to cover the expense of airline tickets for young researchers travelling to and from the Centre. While I cannot fully convey how thankful we are for the Indian government's generosity, I think we also should highlight the decision's symbolic value.

In fact, I believe the agreement carries two important messages. First, that developing countries such as Brazil, India and China are committed to training a critical mass of well-trained scientists. And, second, this commitment is transforming their relationship with ICTP into a true partnership that promises to be of great benefit to ICTP and, more importantly, to the future well-being of scientific communities throughout the developing world. During recent years, more and more visitors coming to ICTP from developing countries have obtained their travel funds from their home countries.

The text of the agreement illustrates the role that ICTP has played over the years in training a large number of Indian mathematicians and theoretical physicists. It also acknowledges that continued progress toward this shared goal will depend on the ability of Indian scientists to gain access to world-class research facilities where they can exchange scientific information and ideas with their peers.

And that's where the partnership with ICTP is likely to prove so critical. The Centre offers a place where scientists from India and countries throughout the developing world can meet researchers from both the South and North to hear more about the most recent advances in their fields.

ICTP owes much of its success to the generosity of the Italian government, which has been the Centre's primary source of funding since its inception some 35 years ago. Now, several developing nations have become not just recipients but contributors to ICTP's efforts to build scientific expertise in the developing world. We welcome the expanded participation of these nations both as an affirmation of the impact of our efforts and as an opportunity to accelerate the pace of change in the future.

M.S. Narasimhan
ICTP Mathematics Group

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