A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) has been renewed between the institutes on our campus and The University of Würzburg on the 27^th of November 2014, to reinforce their active programme of scientific collaboration.

The MoU has laid the foundations of a vibrant internship programme with undergraduate students as well as research collaborations. The internship program has given students from both institutes the opportunity to choose to work with a lab of their interest. Support by the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) "A New Passage to India", has facilitated several short-term visits between the laboratories of K VijayRaghavan, Satyajit Mayor, Apurva Sarin, R Sowdhamini and Axel Brockmann amongst others.

Axel Brockmann who is leading the effort on the SERB School on Chemical Ecology foresees that with time this partnership could draw specific trajectories for many groups on campus.

Exchange programmes such as the one with Würzburg bring cultural and intellectual diversity to our community. The "New Passage to India" programme supports travel and short-stays for students and post docs and we hope that there will be more applications from both Würzburg and our Campus to this programme in the coming years. More importantly, the operation of this programme owes much to the enthusiasm and efforts of Dr. Stephan Schröder-Köhne, head of the graduate school at Würzburg and Prof. Dr. Juergen Kreft, Representative of the Vice-President International Relations, Würzburg.

Prof. Dr. Juergen Kreft considers NCBS as one of the best places in India for research and the institutes have been cooperating for a long period and it is time to widen the scope of these connections into viable directions. Dr. Schröder-Köhne states, "As I speak from the prospective of the graduate schools, for us it is important that the student population of  University of Würzburg are made aware of the possibilities that NCBS has to offer".

With this MoU we look forward to growing further our association with Würzburg.