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Indian and UK astronomers extend SKAO collaboration
from Contact 15
BY DR HILARY KAY (UNIVERSITY OF MANCHESTER) AND PROF. TIRTHANKAR ROY CHOUDHURY (NATIONAL CENTRE FOR RADIO ASTROPHYSICS, TATA INSTITUTE FOR FUNDAMENTAL RESEARCH)
Astronomers in India and the UK have received funding from a new Technology and Skills Partnership programme between the UK Research and Innovation’s Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) and India’s Department of Atomic Energy.
The project will see teams at six partner institutions* develop new and existing collaborations, working together on shared SKA-related science interests while addressing the common Big Data processing challenges posed by the SKAO. The collaboration will run from October 2023 to March 2026.
With a focus on enabling and carrying out cutting-edge science with SKA pathfinders, along with developing essential advanced cosmological simulations, the work will help inform the ongoing development of the UK and Indian SKA Regional Centres.
Passing on their expertise, the teams will also help train future generations of SKAO scientists and provide tools and software pipelines for the wider astronomy community. As part of the funding, recruitment of eight new staff across the UK and Indian teams is already underway, along with 16 Indian MSc students who will make work visits to the UK.
"Building collaborations with our global SKAO partners, especially focused on training the next generation, is crucial going forward," said Dr Leah Morabito, co-lead of the project at Durham University, one of the UK universities involved.
“The tools and software we are developing through this IndoUK collaboration, will be immensely useful for the analysis of data from pathfinder telescopes like the uGMRT and LOFAR," said Prof. Yogesh Wadadekar, co-lead of the project at India's National Centre for Radio Astrophysics (NCRA).
*The six partner institutions are: Durham University, University of Oxford, University of Cambridge, Imperial College London, the National Centre for Radio Astrophysics and the Tata Institute for Fundamental Research.
