Pre-Stakeholders Meeting on Indo - U.S. Joint Clean Energy Research & Development Centre

1. Pre-Stakeholders Meeting on Indo - U.S. Joint Clean Energy Research & Development Centre 22nd October, 2010 New DelhiINDIA

2. The Indo-US JCERDC • India and the United States are establishing the Joint Clean Energy R&D Center, as set out in the Memorandum of Understanding to Enhance Cooperation on Energy Security, Energy Efficiency, Clean Energy, and Climate Change. • The goal for the Center is to spur truly collaborative R&D between U.S. and Indian researchers on potentially breakthrough clean energy technologies.

3. The initial priority areas to be covered under the Indo-US JCERDC are: • Solar Energy • Second Generation Biofuels • Energy Efficiency of Buildings • The thrust should be on cutting edge R&D for technology / process development leading to commercialization. • All components of the research & development and translational chain upto commercialization will be considered.

4. It will not be a new bricks-and-mortar center staffed by government researchers. • The Center's work will be conducted in existing facilities by consortia with the knowledge and experience to undertake first-rate collaborative research programs between the United States and India. • To achieve this objective, the Indo-US JCERDC will support multi-institutional network project costs using public-private partnership model of funding support.

5. The Consortia • Only consortia with multiple partners will be considered. Individual bilateral R&D projects will not be considered. • These consortia will be self-selecting teams, and can consist of entities or individuals from national labs, academic institutions, the public and private sector, non-governmental institutions, and others. • There will need to be a lead U.S. institution that will be responsible for overall management of the U.S.-funded participants in the consortium, and a lead Indian institution similarly responsible for the Indian participants.

6. The individual consortium will be responsible for establishing its own internal governance structure. • While each government will be responsible for its own funding, a single, U.S.-India consortium will be set up for each of the three agreed priority areas.

7. Funding • U.S. Government funds will go to U.S. participants and Indian Government funds will go to Indian participants. • Each government has committed $5 million per year for five years (subject to yearly appropriations) for the Center. • The consortia will need to match government funding with their own funds. That is, U.S. consortium members will need to match DOE’s funding, and Indian consortium members will need to match Government of India funding.

8. Application Process • For the application process, a joint U.S.-India Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) will be made. This is a novel and ambitious approach to creating a truly joint process that we hope will result in real collaboration. • We envision each consortium submitting a single application – U.S. and Indian participants together.

9. Applications will be reviewed by merit review panels of jointly selected U.S. and Indian reviewers. The reviewers will provide recommendations to the two governments. • Each government will make its own final funding decisions, but the two governments will consult with each other with the goal of funding participants in the same consortium.

10. Questions from Stakeholders are welcome • Your feed back will help us to prepare a clear FoA

11. Further details at : http://www.indousstf.org http://www.dbtindia.nic.in