This raises many ambitious plans and targets to achieve emissions reductions, sustainable mobility and urban resilience. These challenges provide UK and Indian businesses and organisations the opportunity for equitable partnerships and business engagement.

To do this requires the collaboration and dedication of the government, both national and local, industry and academia. As a result, we invite you to become a part of our journey of innovation, sustainability and resilience in India and join us to find out more about our work and how you can get involved through the following three webinars.

Project 1: EV Business Models Roadmap for Indian Cities

This stream will focus on how EVs can not only contribute to the net zero and clean air agenda in India’s city space, but how it can provide the country with the opportunity to move from a net importer of fossil fuels and e-mobility supply chain parts and solutions to a leading hub of development and deployment, and then to a regional and global powerhouse of exports.

Hear from experts discuss a new business model to support the sharing economy and greater access to two-wheel electric vehicles (2W EVs) in Indian cities in a way that mitigates the existing issues of price, storage, range anxiety and access by economically disadvantaged groups.

By designing a Future Mobility model of transport, we look at decarbonising urban transportation, opening up mobility access to lower economic classes, increasing mobility in the city, and supporting the battery development and recycling areas that are key to this huge and growing sector.

We will convene the Indian and UK government representatives, academics and businesses to debate state-of-the-art business models that can be tested, validated and then scaled throughout India over subsequent years.

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Project 2: Innovating for Clean Air (IfCA) – Procurement of Innovation in Bengaluru Report

Increasing EV uptake and reducing air pollution are crucial, interrelated challenges for cities worldwide. Replacing petrol/diesel cars with electric vehicles could have a hugely positive impact on air quality and health, as well as supporting climate goals. To address these challenges, in 2019 Connected Places, Energy Systems and Satellite Applications Catapults, with collaborative partners in India (including the Department for Urban Land Transport, Indian Institute of Science and Urban Morph), launched the Innovating for Clean Air (IfCA) project. The project was a two-year initiative funded by UK Research and Innovation and focused on the Karnataka state capital city of Bengaluru. You can find out more information about it here, here, and here.

As a second phase of the IfCA project Connected Places Catapult is now looking at policies and regulations that concern the procurement of services in the Karnataka state and Bengaluru city. The aim is to look at how cities can better procure the services of highly innovative small to mid-sized companies. The report launch will focus on research and stakeholder interview findings from Bengaluru and state of Karnataka and lessons learned for future procurement practices in India.[cpc_video cpc_video__url="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJvHlYiG3FI" cpc_video__text="Innovating for Clean Air - Bengaluru Report Launch"]

Project 3: A Playbook for Indian and UK Megacities

Connected Places Catapult is undertaking a research and benchmarking study of megacities in the UK and developing roadmaps for sustainable urban development for their counterpart Indian megacities, with a focus on low emission mobility, innovation hubs, smart technology deployment, application of innovative technologies and the role of mobility in socio-economic performance of a megacity.

We will look at complex urban centres in each country and provide a framework for understanding lessons learned and knowledge exchange between the approaches of the complex urban centres in planning, implementing and measuring the impact of projects and programmes to support their sustainable and socio-economic development.

With a focus on ensuring local company involvement, the analysis will look how UK and Indian large cities can leverage and unlock investment with target ecosystems to catalyse innovation and economic activity.

The report features a roadmap guiding local authorities and private sector actors how to move forward with collaborative projects between the UK and Indian counterparts and the launch event will be a first step towards achieving this goal.

Further information

If you’d like more information, please get in touch with Roxana Slavcheva at roxana.slavcheva@cp.catapult.org.uk