Project overview
Provision of *Quality Education* remains a key challenge to sustainable global development. Quality education leads to economic progress through innovation, personal growth and well-being, and reduction of socio-economic inequalities (including gender). Developing countries often suffer the most in terms of this provision. Despite the formulation of miriad strategies to raise the basic education level of their populations, high quality education remains confined to a small elite minority. Targeted approaches addressing specific needs in the higher education sector remain sparse. In particular, the pure sciences are often neglected in lieu of applied subjects such as engineering and information-technology. Yet, blue-skies education and research is critical for driving innovation and development. Here, we address the issue of pure science development in the low/middle-income country (LMIC) India and the least developed country (LDC) Nepal. We will focus on astronomy and astrophysics education and research activities as a means to encouraging Masters' level university students to go on and pursue higher level research. The students will learn transferable skills in data analysis and critical thinking, allowing them to apply their knowledge well beyond astronomy. There is a clear and definite need for such capacity building. India is on a path to constructing and operating major new infrastructure focused on astrophysics research. This includes IndIGO (the first gravitational wave LIGO detector outside the USA), the recently-launched AstroSat mission (a world-leading high-energy astronomy satellite), and their involvement in several major international projects such as the Thirty Metre Telescope (TMT) and South African Large Telescope (SALT) consortium. The UK has core expertise in all of these. However, there is also a shortfall of Indian expertise with the requisite advanced skills to fully develop and exploit the projects. Much funding at present is concentrated in the Indian space programme (ISRO) and in engineering schools (IITs), and both of these have demonstrated success. Yet, India is from being competitive in blue-skies research capacity. Both the AstroSat and the IndIGO teams are keen to recruit fresh young talent and bring in additional resources (IndIGO is currently heavily reliant on US contributions). Additionally, there is a need for young scientists to take the lead in developing TMT and SALT projects; India has a significant share in both which is currently underutilised for SALT. Nepal's state is far worse. Despite having access to some of the clearest skies in the Himalayas, and a youth force with high aspirations, opportunities for development of pure science research are almost non-existent. Most Nepalese youth are never exposed to the excitement of research. In fact, many of them simply never get the chance to travel abroad. Our approach will be two-fold: (1) We intend to host a series of workshops in four geographical regions of India, and one in Nepal. Up to ~80 students from a host university and surrounding colleges will be targeted, some of these being quite isolated from big cities. Each workshop will include lectures on a range of frontier topics in astrophysics and data science that the UK (and Southampton in particular) has core expertise in. One-on-one sessions with students will be held to encourage them and answer queries on career possibilities. (2) Select students will participate in longer training camps in IUCAA and at Southampton, where they will carry out a short research project and will receive international exposure and interaction with their UK peers. Our strategy includes capacity building through core learning, outreach activities, hands-on training and cross-border interactions. The aim is to allow the next generation of research stars ('sitare') to shine brightly in these countries. Provisions are included for sustainability beyond the end of the project
