CHENNAI: In significant milestone in collaborative research and strategic engagement between academia and industry, Shell India and IIT-Madras Energy Consortium have partnered to launch the 'Shell IITM Centre for Energy Research (SICER).

According to the release issued by IIT-Madras, the collaboration will be centralized under SICER for five years and will promote innovation, research, development, piloting, and commercialization of technologies in the energy sector.

"The key outcomes envisaged include research collaborations in critical challenges and opportunities in the energy transition space, incubation of energy start-ups by leveraging the start-up ecosystem of IIT-M and the Shell Chair Professorship which will act as a bridge and enable knowledge exchange between Shell and IIT-M, along with the continuation of Shell’s participation in the Energy Consortium," it noted.

Highlighting the unique aspects of the partnership, Ajay Mehta, vice-president of Shell said, "We have had several successful bilateral research and development (R&D) projects with IIT-M in the past. This collaboration will further enable us to share our knowledge and resources with IITM while leveraging their expertise, R&D facilities, and innovation ecosystem to address one of the world’s most critical challenges - the energy transition."

As part of the initiative, Satyanarayanan Seshadri was announced as the first-ever Shell Chair Professor at IIT-Madras.

On his part, Satyanarayanan Seshadri, Shell chair professor said, "Our mission is to unlock the full potential of our partnership by leveraging our shared interests in areas such as R&D and startup incubation, while also actively seeking out new opportunities for collaboration."