ISRO set to unveil latest sponsored research opportunities for academia

BENGALURU, Mar 14: The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) will unveil its latest sponsored research opportunities to the academia on Tuesday.
‘RESPOND BASKET 2022’, the Bengaluru-headquartered space agency’s focused research topics for sponsored research, will be launched by ISRO Chairman and Secretary in the Department of Space S Somanath.
“Every year, we publish ISRO-focused topics for research in the Respond Basket. Then, several universities and colleges apply to ISRO for joint collaboration. We will enter into MoUs with finalised academia,” an ISRO official told PTI.
RESPOND’s objective is to encourage academia to participate and contribute in various space-related research activities. Under RESPOND, projects are taken up by universities/academic institutions in the areas of relevance to space programme.
ISRO said it has evolved the RESPOND programme through which necessary financial and technical support is provided to academia in India for conducting research and development activities related to space science, space technology and space applications.
This is the flagship programme of ISRO to promote the extramural research in emerging areas of space for academia.
To enable the faculty of universities/institutes to prepare suitable proposals of relevance to the space programme, a detailed list of R&D areas/sub areas/topics are evolved as per major programmes of ISRO, by the various centres of ISRO and published annually.
“RESPOND programme is mutually beneficial to ISRO and academia, wherein the rich talent of academia/ faculty is being harnessed to support the nation’s space programme,” it was stated. (PTI)