INNO INDIGO is a horizontal ERA-Net with India and is the successor project of New INDIGO (2009-2013), which successfully implemented schemes for EU-India transnational calls for proposals (New INDIGO Partnership Programme)

The calls have developed from simple networking and mobility funding towards the funding of research projects open for Small and Middle size enterprises (SME) involvement. Through these activities the EU-India STI cooperation has already been put on a smooth basis by the regular publication of joint transnational calls. The applied call mechanisms proved to be applicable even with changing funding partners, thematic scopes, funding amounts and funding instruments.

Within the lifetime of INNO INDIGO the implementation of three calls for proposals is foreseen. Beyond the preparation and implementation of joint calls one central aim is to optimize the outreach of INNO INDIGO and facilitate the networking of funding organizations in Europe and India.

INNO INDIGO will offer opportunities for interested funding organizations to participate in all steps taken towards the implementation and management of EU-India transnational calls. The experiences from the past five years will be used in order to further enhance EU-India cooperation, as well as in order to support and further develop bilateral as well as multilateral activities. There are various new elements addressed in the INNO INDIGO ERA-Net as e.g. how to bring ideas to market, how to support young researchers, how to develop new forms of collaboration etc.

INNO INDIGO will also consider input from other relevant sources like the Indian government, the European Commission or the EU-MS/AS (also in the context of the GSO).

Discover the EU-India network formed as a result of the new INDIGO Partnership Programme @ http://indigoprojects.eu/.
Visit http://bit.ly/1z6BgGZ to help us design future calls for proposals between Europe and India to best fit SME's needs. 

Irish and Indian teachers relax after a long day on the Global Schoolroom programme 

By: Carmel Hughes

2014 Global Schoolroom Volunteer

The days my children were born were the most exciting of my life. The week I climbed Kilimanjaro was the most exhilarating of my life. But the month I spent with Global Schoolroom in India has been the most amazing month of my life!

Global Schoolroom brings teachers together to share educational experience, expertise and good practice, and to build sustainable frameworks for high standards of teacher education worldwide, and have been working in the remote states of Northeast India since 2006.

So on Saturday, the 5th of July, twenty-six volunteers, all of whom were or still are teachers from Ireland, made their way to three of the seven states of Northeast India - Assam, Meghalaya and Tripura. This wonderful and mysterious corner of India is home to thirty four million people, comprising three hundred and fifty tribes, speaking about two hundred different languages.

Global Schoolroom is dedicated to sharing educational experience between communities worldwide to help eradicate poverty, promote economic development and build sustainable communities.  Since 2006, Global Schoolroom has brought almost 180 teachers (serving and retired) from Ireland together with over 800 of their colleagues in India.  The Irish teachers have worked as volunteer tutors during their summer holidays and mid-term breaks on a University College Dublin (UCD) accredited programme for unqualified Indian teachers.  In November 2013, this programme was officially recognised by Assam Don Bosco University (ADBU), Guwahati, India, as an established teacher education programme fulfilling the demands of teacher training under the Right to Education Act, India 2009. Throughout this time, the Irish teachers have contributed hugely to their own personal and professional development through this engagement with their Indian colleagues and as more and more Indian teachers qualify on the programme they too have the opportunity to become mentors and tutors, thus contributing to the program's sustainability.

It costs an average of €26,000 per year to run ten training centres in India. The programmes operate on a cost-neutral basis for local participants and the costs of travel, accommodation and food for the local teachers are covered by Global Schoolroom funding.

On 6th July, my team mate Ruth, and I, arrived in St. Andre's English Medium School in Bodhjungnagar, in the state of Tripura. A local management committee, to respond to the need for local education, opened the school in 1986. In 1991, it was handed over to the Fathers of the Holy Cross. It caters for 1184 boys and girls from the age of 4-19. Nineteen tribes (and their various languages!) are represented. There are 42 teachers and half of these attended our training programme.

We spent the first two weeks sharing our combined classroom experiences with these wonderfully receptive teachers. They are naturally reserved people but gradually they interacted with us and participated wholeheartedly in all our activities.  They nodded at our anecdotes and humored us by joining in our dancing attempts... a hybrid of Fallai Luimni (Ruth's home town) and Ionsai Na hInse, if you must know!!

During the next fortnight we carried out Teaching Practice with our student teachers with Ruth and I observing their classes. It was an eye-opener to see how the teachers rose to the challenge of incorporating so many new ideas into their teaching. They achieved this in the most basic of classrooms, with little or no resources and with forty or fifty students before them.

Our two hosts, Fr. Jilson and Fr. Michael, are busy missionaries: gracious, entertaining company; well read and always open to lively debate on the most controversial of topics. The dynamic Fr. Jilson, himself an alumni of the Global Schoolroom programme, would run a Youth Programme in the Parish in the morning, fix a generator in the afternoon and cure snake bites on any given evening.

Those afflicted with poisonous snakebites were brought to the dispensary, where a cut was made to the bite area and a special black stone fixed to the spot. When the poison was drawn out, the stone fell off. The stone was then placed in milk, which retained the poison and the stone could be re-used. Nobody died after this treatment, but perhaps the anti-venom injection helped!

Fr. Michael, on the other hand, is a keen soccer player.  Our visit coincided with the World Cup so a friendly was organised with a local Holy Cross College, who wore the white of Germany, while 'our boys', with Fr. Michael as Captain, wore the blue and white of Argentina. 'Germany' won, a forecast of the result in the World Cup Final later that night.

We were brought to jungle villages; shopping trips to Agartala (our nearest city - population four and a half million!); visits to family homes; a rubber plantation; a tea garden; other religious communities and the colorful changing of the guard at the Bangladeshi border.  What an amazing month!!

I was able to travel to India with Global Schoolroom because of the generosity of my family, friends, neighbors and businesses in Celbridge, where I live.  With support from the IIBA, the great work of Global Schoolroom can continue.

Global Schoolroom are currently recruiting for summer 2015.  Check-out www.globalschoolroom.net or email info@globalschoolroom.net 

Global Schoolroom has been selected as the Ireland India Business Association's Charity Partner of the year. 

To learn a little more about Global Schoolroom please click on the link below:

Global Schoolroom interview with CEO Dr. Garret Campbell and Professor Bairbre Redmond