Journey continues….

August and September were quite significant on a few fronts as Institutions all across the globe planned to start fall sessions, keeping in mind the health and safety for everyone. I believe it is a collective top priority for all of us to embrace the radical changes in academics and research, and simultaneously altered administrative and operational procedures. New pedagogies are being developed to overcome the jolt of a pandemic and to continue teaching -learning at all levels.

At SICI, we began the assessment process of grant applications/proposals received post our programme announcement, followed by a sea of new queries on possibility of mobility between India and Canada, and many other aspects that were unique to this year’s programming due to the Pandemic. Fortunately, we managed to enforce ‘new normal’ ways of research technics which are working fine for now, but certainly are quite restrictive in its approach and outcome. We, including our fellows, are navigating through these changes and moving swiftly to the next phases.  Although, this demanded a lot of effort to plan and lay things out for our current SICI fellows as well for the new applicants.

On the other fronts, we continued to collaborate with stakeholders and member institutions to deliberate on the most relevant topics through SICI’s Indian Independence Day webinar series. We completed four webinars, featuring experts from India and Canada. This exercise and engagement with various entities have helped us to identify themes and opportunities that resonate most with the faculty and students. Many thanks to all the speakers who contributed to the success of these webinar series!

Even though the pandemic continues to challenge institutions and systems, it is heartening to see many organizations and institutions coming forward with interesting and informative forums on academic and scientific research. Thanks to social media, it enlightens me every day about how well our member institutions are creating customized virtual content for the academic and research fraternity, discussing about the wonderful discoveries and innovations in the areas like medicine and artificial Intelligence, and adding value to the community at large. This is a revolution to me, so much knowledge dissemination and exchange happening at a lightning speed! Adding to the ongoing enthusiasm is a unique, month-long collaborative initiative called VAIBHAV Summit (Oct 2-31) undertaken by the Government of India that brings Indian overseas and resident academicians/scientists create an ecosystem in knowledge and innovation. Here is another chance for us to to leverage the expertise for solving emerging challenges in the world such as climate change, carbon emission and so on and so forth. Read more about the summit in the following pages of Engage.

I re-emphasize, that SICI’s Executive Council and the administration are working tirelessly to facilitate and support governments, stakeholders and its member institutions, remotely. Please reach out to us if you have questions or concerns. It is important that we don’t lose the sight of our goals even when the new reality is full of changes and uncertainties of all kinds.

All the best!

Thank you & please stay safe!                           
Prachi Kaul, PhD
Twitter: @kaul_prachi