350+ experts across seven scientific institutions pinpoint research goals to accelerate a scalable and sustainable future for 1.4 billion people
Media Contact: Carlie Wiener [email protected]
NEW YORK/NEW DELHI—More than 350 researchers from seven of India’s leading scientific institutions have come together with Schmidt Sciences to release a new report that maps the scientific priorities shaping the country’s climate and energy future.
Developed in partnership with the Centre for Environmental Planning and Technology, Indian Institute of Science, Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT Delhi, IIT Bombay, IIT Madras, and IIT Kanpur) and The Energy and Resources Institute, India’s Climate and Energy Frontiers (ICEF) report identifies a shift from isolated solutions toward integrated systems that connect science, industry, government and civil society.
The report outlines seven key research frontiers at the intersection of scientific progress and real-world implementation, which include:
- Climate Transition Pathways: As India’s energy sector shifts away from fossil fuels, new modeling approaches can uncover potential economic and social disruptions to secure a just transition for all communities.
- Key Energy Technologies: Advances in solar voltaics, battery storage, green hydrogen, carbon capture and energy systems modeling are poised to accelerate the decarbonization of India’s energy sector.
- Modeling for Climate Finance: An integrated modeling framework can eliminate blindspots and capture interconnections across India’s economy, scoping supply, demand and risk at scale to unlock investment in a net-zero future.
- Land-Based Carbon Sequestration: India’s forests and fields can absorb the equivalent of half-a-billion tonnes of CO2, but a nationwide effort to expand monitoring, data analysis and coordinated research – especially in biogeochemistry and the carbon cycle – could increase that potential by 400%.
- Water and Ocean Sciences: A multidisciplinary initiative to unify water cycle research – from monsoon prediction to groundwater monitoring – under a national Water Cyber Infrastructure can improve health and safety outcomes across every community in India.
- Built Environment: Ninety percent of the infrastructure India will need to reach its near-term economic goals does not exist yet, offering an extraordinary window to effectively design and build a net-zero nation.
- Resilient Cities: As India’s urban population grows by 25 million every year, emerging technology creates an opportunity to engineer low-carbon, adaptable cities that serve as models for liveable development in a warming world.
Schmidt Sciences has a collaborative relationship with India’s academic institutions, supporting interdisciplinary research and partnerships that bring together scientists across fields to address complex climate and energy challenges, including efforts such as the Net Zero India Project in collaboration with IIT Delhi. This video shares more about the relationship and offers b-roll for use.
The report is part of Schmidt Sciences’ broader efforts to strengthen collaboration across scientific disciplines that have traditionally operated independently, with the goal of accelerating research that can inform real-world decision-making.
About Schmidt Sciences
Schmidt Sciences is a nonprofit organization founded in 2024 by Eric and Wendy Schmidt that works to accelerate scientific knowledge and breakthroughs with the most promising, advanced tools to support a thriving planet. The organization prioritizes research in areas poised for impact including AI and advanced computing, astrophysics, biosciences, climate, and space—as well as supporting researchers in a variety of disciplines through its science systems program.
Schmidt Sciences’ Climate Center supports fundamental science, decision-relevant tools and global research networks to deepen understanding of our interconnected Earth system and to bend the carbon curve toward a sustainable future for humanity and nature. Its work brings together interdisciplinary research, observations and modeling to better account for feedback across the land, atmosphere and oceans and to evaluate mitigation strategies.