Building Comprehensive Networks to Address the Sustainable Energy Challenge with Focus on Rural India

A Newton Workshop on “Translating Clean Energy Research to Rural India” was recently held at the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER Pune), Pune, India, Sept. 4-8, 2017, which was jointly organized by the University of Edinburgh, UK and IISER Pune, with funding support from the British Council under the Researcher Links scheme of its Newton Fund program and the Royal Society of Chemistry, UK. It brought together physical scientists and social scientists alongside practitioners and innovators in an ambitious event to build networks and projects across the broad spectrum of disciplines required to address global challenges such as sustainable energy. This article describes the concept, ambitions, implementation and outcomes of the workshop.