MoES & AcSIR Strategic Research Partnership

The Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES) and the Academy of Scientific and Innovative Research (AcSIR) have formalized a strategic partnership to expand doctoral research opportunities across earth system sciences. Formally declared on October 13, 2026, at Prithvi Bhawan in New Delhi following its execution in August, the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) designates all 10 MoES research institutes as AcSIR Associated Research Institutes (AcSIR-ARIs). The framework integrates MoES’s specialized research infrastructure with AcSIR’s academic structure to offer PhD programs in ocean, atmospheric, and polar sciences. Under this arrangement, doctoral scholars will conduct research at MoES facilities under the mentorship of MoES scientists holding AcSIR faculty status, with AcSIR awarding the final doctoral degrees citing the host institution. Designed to advance interdisciplinary research, resource sharing, and academic capacity building, all 10 MoES institutes are participating in AcSIR’s active PhD enrollment cycle. Implementation is managed via designated nodal coordinators at each institute alongside a central MoES coordinator. The collaborative research scope encompasses critical scientific domains, including weather forecasting, numerical weather prediction, marine robotics, deep-sea mining, desalination, seismology, earthquake hazard mapping, coastal processes, and artificial intelligence/machine learning applications in earth system modeling. Additionally, the MoU establishes a clear intellectual property framework that recognizes student inventors and governs the mutual sharing of jointly generated IP, reinforcing India's scientific research ecosystem in deep-tech and environmental sciences.