RTI India Establishes COVID-19 Partnership with India Alliance

RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, N.C. — RTI India, a wholly owned subsidiary of RTI International (RTI), established a new COVID-19 Catalytic Partnership with the India Alliance, a dynamic public charity. The partnership will address pandemic response and recovery efforts in India by fostering robust scientific research, thought leadership and interdisciplinary collaboration. There were more than 276,500 confirmed coronavirus cases in India at the beginning of June, making it the fifth-worst affected country in the world. 

The partnership will leverage the complementary biomedical and public health expertise of RTI India and the India Alliance, and facilitate collaboration between researchers based in academia, industry and the social sector in India. Work will focus on COVID-19-related research that has immediate applications and builds the country’s resilience in facing emerging pandemic threats. It will also enable strategic engagements with both public and private-sector stakeholders for advocacy, policy reform and resource mobilization, among other activities. 

“We believe this partnership will foster a collaborative exchange between our two organizations that generates timely evidence and insights to help inform India’s response to the coronavirus pandemic,” said Dr. Rajiv Tandon, Health Director, RTI India. “This partnership has the potential of helping the Indian health sector maximize results across the breadth of its programming and develop technology architectures that sustain long-term impact.” 

Potential areas of interest for collaboration include testing, surveillance, contact tracing, medical consultation, delivery of essential health and nutrition services to vulnerable and at-risk communities, strengthening of health systems and supply chains, risk communication, community engagement and other activities. 

RTI has supported improvements in health, water and sanitation, energy, and the environment in India since 1982. In 2014, RTI established RTI India, a permanent presence in the country, to support India in addressing its development challenges. 

About RTI India

RTI India is a fully owned subsidiary of RTI International. RTI is an independent, nonprofit research institute dedicated to improving the human condition. Clients rely on us to answer questions that demand an objective and multidisciplinary approach—one that integrates expertise across the social and laboratory sciences, engineering, and international development. For more information, visit www.rti.org. 

About India Alliance

India Alliance is a dynamic, public charity in India established in 2008 as a partnership between the Government of India’s Department of Biotechnology (DBT) and The Wellcome Trust, UK. Its mission is to build scientific capacity and support internationally competitive research in biomedical and health sciences at Indian institutions. For more information, visit https://www.indiaalliance.org/.