Centres of Excellence
1. SANJEEVANI
Strategies for ActioNs to Jointly address climatE changE and air pollution for achieVing heAlth beNefits for India.
A Centre for Advanced Research (CAR) to develop climate data for applications in health, funded by Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), Department of Health Research, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India, New Delhi, India.
Key Objectives and Scope of SANJEEVANI:
Data Development: Generate downscaled emission-tagged exposure data for climate hazards (air pollutants, heat, weather extremes) from 2000 to 2030.
Risk Assessment: Create India-specific exposure-risk functions to prioritize climate actions.
Co-benefits Analysis: Assess the health, economic, and environmental benefits of mitigation strategies across energy and non-energy sectors.
Adaptation Strategies: Identify protective measures, including green/blue spaces, dietary changes, and phytochemicals to mitigate health impacts.
Implementation: The project, led by institutions like IIT Delhi, aims to create actionable, location-specific policies rather than just generic guidelines.
Key Focus Areas:
Intersectionality: Tackling the nexus of climate change, air pollution, and human health.
Targeted Sectors: Evaluating energy, industry, and transportation for cleaner, sustainable solutions.
Health Focus: Focusing on reducing non-communicable diseases (NCDs) related to environmental factors.
Collaborative Framework: Bridging gaps between environmental and health policies
SANJEEVANI aligns with India's National Clean Air Programme (NCAP) and India Cooling Action Plan (ICAP) by providing scientific evidence to support reduction targets and health benefits.
2. DST Centre of Excellence for Climate Information
The DST Centre of Excellence in Climate Modeling was established at IIT Delhi in 2017 with support from the Department of Science and Technology, Government of India. The Centre was conceived to address critical climate challenges facing India and the surrounding region.
Over time, the scope of the Centre has expanded. Today, it serves as a Centre of Excellence for Climate Information, focused on generating actionable intelligence to combat climate change and global warming, while advancing our understanding of the complex climate system. Our team is uniquely interdisciplinary, comprising faculty and students from atmospheric and oceanic sciences, fluid mechanics and heat transfer, artificial intelligence and machine learning, optimization and operations research, sequential decision-making, and economics and business administration. This diverse expertise allows us to approach climate change not as a problem confined to one domain, but as a multifaceted challenge requiring integrated solutions.