India, UK launch Ramanujan research programme for young Indian scientists

LONDON : A new Ramanujan Junior Researchers programme, backed by India’s Department for Science and Technology (DST), will bring some of the country’s brightest young theoretical physicists and mathematicians to the London Institute for Mathematical Sciences (LIMS) for joint research. Unveiled on the back of Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s recent visit to India, the scheme is named in honour of celebrated Indian mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan’s friendship with British mathematician G H Hardy. That collaboration had brought Ramanujan to England in 1913, with their joint insights now occupying a central place in modern mathematics.

“Our Ramanujan Junior Researchers programme will act as a bridge for the exchange of talents between two science superpowers,” said Dr Thomas Fink, the Director of LIMS. “The work Ramanujan did with Hardy transformed the mathematical sciences. This, along with the success of our fellowships for theorists from Russia and Ukraine, has inspired us to welcome some of India’s brightest minds to join us in our rooms at the Royal Institution,” he said.

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The campaign to secure government backing was spearheaded by Indian High Commissioner to the UK Vikram Doraiswami, with the support of Professor Krishnaswamy Vijayraghavan, former principal scientific advisor to the Government of India. “The story of Hardy and Ramanujan reminds us that science advances not through isolation, but through friendship and dialogue,” said Doraiswami. “This programme will give young Indian scientists the same chance Ramanujan once had — to test their ideas in the world’s most stimulating environments,” he said.

Ramanujan Junior Researchers scheme

The DST-funded phase one of the programme will consist of Ramanujan Junior Visitors or Indian PhD students, selected in the first instance from the Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research (JNCASR), to spend several months working at the LIMS home at the Royal Institution in London’s Mayfair. These “visitors” will attend lectures and participate in research with scientists at LIMS.

The programme will initially offer up to six PhD students from JNCASR the opportunity to spend several months at LIMS, with plans for the scheme to be widened in subsequent years to attract the very best young theoretical physics and mathematics students from across India.

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In phase two, the programme will expand to include the Ramanujan Junior Fellowships. Open to candidates from across India in the early years after their PhD, these positions will bring gifted young Indian physicists and mathematicians to work at LIMS. They will have the chance to forge links with their counterparts in Britain over the course of three transformative years.

LIMS, a research organisation dedicated to speeding up discovery, is in the process of raising funds for these Ramanujan Junior Fellowships. The institute, based in the Royal Institution, is focussed on peak performance and full-time research and lays claim to several Nobel prizes and the discovery of 10 chemical elements and the principles of electromagnetism.