Birmingham University unveils Indian cold chain partnership team
A joint initiative between the Centre for Sustainable Cooling (CSC), University of Birmingham, United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and Indian state government and industry partners has entered the next stage of UK-India partnership with the appointment of an expert team recently.
The Telangana Centre of Excellence for Sustainable Cooling and Cold-Chain and the Haryana Centre of Excellence for Crop Postharvest Management and Sustainable Cold-Chain were created to promote innovation and accelerating the deployment of energy-efficient refrigeration for food and vaccine supply chains across India. Now, India Lead Avinash Verma, Telangana and Global Logistics Lead Jacob Kurian, Haryana and Post-Harvest Management Lead Anant Shukla, vaccine cold-chain expert researcher Aneeka Kamal Canchi and technology expert researcher Anil Kumar are in place to take the projects forward.
The team will deliver an integrated project plan and coordinate the India Centres of Excellence - driving engagement with strategic partners from government, industry, academia, and civil society. The programme is a joint initiative between the Centre for Sustainable Cooling (CSC), University of Birmingham, United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and in-country State Government and industry partners.
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Professor Toby Peters from University of Birmingham commented: “I’m delighted that our senior expert team is now in place and look forward to working closely with them as the Centres are developed into a state-of-the-art research, training and innovation hub to deploy needs-driven and equitable system-level cooling and cold-chain solutions in Telangana and Haryana, across India as well as the global food and vaccine chains.
“Our new team has been hand-picked to deliver a systems approach focusing on non-technological and behavioural issues as well, recognising that technologies need to be financeable, integrated into processes and be accepted by end users, while some solutions can be achieved though changes or adaptations to operational practices."
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The Centres are underpinned by Memoranda of Understanding (MoUs) signed between the state governments of Telangana and Haryana and the University of Birmingham and are the result of extensive foundational work. The University of Birmingham serves as the strategic and academic, training and research lead with a consortium of other top universities.