IIT Roorkee, Japanese institutions join hands for economic, environmental research

The research titled "Ecosystem centric rural revitalization: Bridging the urban-rural dichotomy toward post-COVID resilient recovery," is funded by India's Indian Council of Social Science Research (ICSSR) and the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS).

The Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Roorkee has collaborated with Japan's Institute for Global Environmental Strategies and Keio University with an aim of implementing a bilateral project to analyze the economic and environmental impact of the COVID 19 pandemic-induced reverse migration on the urban-rural continuum.

According to the official statement, the research is titled "Ecosystem centric rural revitalization: Bridging the urban-rural dichotomy toward post-COVID resilient recovery.” The research  is being funded by India's Indian Council of Social Science Research (ICSSR) and the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS).

Research to focus on Haridwar and Kanagawa

Two study sites have been selected for this research to focus on including Haridwar in India and Kanagawa prefecture in Japan. In connection with the joint research, a project workshop was conducted at IIT Roorkee on June 27, 2022 to bring together experts and stakeholders to discuss the topic, the official statement said.

Talking about the research and collaboration, Bijon Kr Mitra, IGES Japan said, "Urban and rural areas are strongly interconnected and failure to understand the strong linkages may affect the sustainability of the rural food-energy-water nexus. The proposed research will emphasize the policies adopted in India and Japan to support key economic sectors, making them resilient to disasters.”

"The project will demonstrate the pathways of eco-system centric revitalization of rural areas through diversification of its economy toward decentralized growth in the post-COVID-19 era. There is no need to re-invent the wheel to find solutions to complicated problems but harness the learnings cross-discipline and cross-country to identify sustainable growth strategies," said Ajit K Chaturvedi, director of IIT Roorkee.

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