NEW DELHI, India - 03/20/06 - In a landmark research agreement, the ten-campus University of California (UC) system has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with several of India's leading science and technology organizations to carry out ground-breaking research in a number of scientific disciplines. 

The 5-year pact was recently signed in New Delhi by representatives of the University and the Indian Secretary of the Department of Science and Technology. 

The move "will dramatically strengthen joint research and educational collaborations, and will build on the recent US-India collaborations in engineering education, expanding the focus to a wide range of disciplines," said a statement released at the time of the signing.

The primary areas of collaboration, the statement said, will include biomedical and digital healthcare technologies, drug design and delivery systems, the study of emerging infectious diseases, wireless and mobile communication, intelligent transportation systems, telematics, and information technology and cyber security.

In addition, technologies for disaster warning, mitigation and management, nanomedicine and nanotechnology, solar energy and bio-fuels, agricultural biotechnology and food security, marine systems, water quality and quantity, global warming and climate change studies will also draw focus.

A bi-national Joint Steering Committee (JSC) has been created to "effectively implement" the MOU, the statement said.

The decision to partner with the University of California was made because of the system's "reputation as one of the world's leading centers of research and education," it added.

The new cooperative research effort will initially be funded by a $10 million grant on the UC side and matching funds from India, with additional funding "dependent on the requirements of the subject approved for each of next five years," the statement said.