ANCEHA research group has a number of research projects including international collaboration projects under INCP, UTFORSK and NORPART programs funded by Norwegian Centre for International Cooperation in Education (SIU) and the Royal Norwegian Embassy in Colombo, Sri Lanka.
Western Norway University of Applied Sciences (HVL) and University of Jaffna (UoJ) jointly secured Norwegian Partnership Programme for Global Academic Cooperation (NORPART) Grant up to NOK 4.7 million over the period of five years (2017 – 2021) under the theme of ‘Higher Education and Research collaboration on Nanomaterials for Clean Energy Technologies (HRNCET)’ funded by Norwegian Centre for International Cooperation in Education (SIU). In addition, Royal Norwegian Embassy in Sri Lanka has funded HVL 6.2 million Norwegian Kroners over a period of three years (2017-2019) for a project on Capacity Building and Establishment of a Research Consortium in Nanomaterials for Clean Energy Technologies.
The main objective of the project is to strengthen the collaboration between the partner institutions (Western Norway University of Applied Sciences, Universities of Adger and Bergen, Norway, Coimbatore Institute of Technology (CIT), India and University of Peradeniya) in educational and research activities, and implement student and staff mobility within the field of clean energy technologies. The main objective of the project funded by the Royal Norwegian Embassy is to strengthen the existing collaboration between the partner institutions in the field of nanomaterials for energy technologies and to establish a clean energy consortium that includes private enterprises from Norway and Sri Lanka.
Coimbatore Institute of Technology (CIT) and Western Norway University of Applied Sciences (HVL) started joint academic and research collaboration activities in the year 2010 and the first MoU between the two institutions was signed in the year 2011. The research groups at HVL and CIT started working jointly in the area of modeling, synthesis and characterization of nanomaterials for solar cell applications.
In 2015, the Project Advanced Nano materials for Clean Energy Applications (INCP) with a grant of NOK 1.05 million was sanctioned by Norwegian Centre for International Cooperation in Education (SiU) and this further strengthened the collaboration between the two institutions. The INCP project, paved way for considerable increase in the mobility of Master, PhD students and academic staff between the two institutions and has also resulted in good number of research publications. As a part of this collaboration we have organized five international conferences so far.
In 2017 HVL and CIT were granted the UTFORSK long term project entitled ‘Nanomaterials for Energy and Health Applications with ICT as Enabling Technology’ with a grant of NOK 2 million. In partnership with public and private enterprises, the main objective of the UTFORSK project is to strengthen and expand the existing collaboration between HVL and CIT resulting in establishment of sustainable collaboration on research, innovation and higher education in nanomaterials for energy and health applications using ICT as the enabling technology.