Grand Challenges Spur the Establishment of Centres of Excellence
- Editorial Team
- Jan 14
- 4 min read
India’s climate and sustainability trajectory is defined by a group of interconnected grand challenges—water security, energy transition, waste and circularity, agricultural resilience, transport and mobility reform, and the cross-sectoral risks stemming from climate change and natural hazards. These challenges are complex, systemic, and capital-intensive; they are not amenable to incremental measures or sector silos. They demand integrated and enduring solutions that can be adapted, financed, commercialised, and scaled in real markets.
In response, Bharatia has launched six Centres of Excellence (CoEs) that align directly with these grand-challenge sectors. Each Centre acts as a structural platform for scientific advancement, global collaboration, project development, technology commercialisation, standards, training, and finance mobilisation. The Centres connect three disciplines that rarely converge in practice: policy acceptance, technological feasibility, and financial viability. This is the core Bharatia methodology—solutions anchored at the intersection of policy, technology, and finance.
Beyond problem-solving, the Centres play a long-term systems role. They build alliances, generate knowledge, develop standards, foster innovation, enable FOAK (First-of-a-Kind) demonstrations, facilitate NOAK (Nth-of-a-Kind) scale-up, strengthen institutional capacity, stimulate manufacturing and localisation, mobilise blended capital, and translate scientific knowledge into investible projects. They are also vehicles for international collaboration, certification, workforce development, and advocacy. In doing so, the Centres aim not to manage risk but to permanently resolve structural bottlenecks associated with India’s climate transition.
The six Centres of Excellence are briefly summarised below.
Centre of Excellence on Water
Water remains one of India’s most urgent and multi-layered grand challenges, spanning hydrology, river systems, drinking water, irrigation, groundwater recharge, wastewater, sludge, biosolids, and circularity.
The Centre on Water seeks to create a modern water-economy architecture that integrates regulations, technology, engineering, science, and finance. It provides a platform for research collaboration, global utilities partnerships, standards-setting, project development, digital water technologies, and blended finance models for infrastructure.
Central to the Centre’s mission is the translation of water science and engineering into investment-ready and district-scalable projects. By connecting FOAK demonstrations with pathways for NOAK scale-up, the
Centre aims to crowd-in institutional capital into wastewater, riverine systems, recycling, reuse, and circular water markets—thus contributing to long-term water security and resilience.
Centre of Excellence on Energy
India’s energy transition encompasses decarbonised power, clean fuels, storage, distributed energy systems, and industrial electrification. The Centre on Energy is designed as a structured vehicle for advancing alternative fuels, green manufacturing, digital grids, smart metering, electrified logistics, and next-generation battery and hydrogen value chains. Its mandate extends from policy research to technology localisation and commercial finance, recognising that clean energy adoption remains constrained not by science alone but by economics and scale.
A key endeavour of the Centre is to enable investible models for FOAK demonstration plants, distributed energy infrastructure, and transition technologies that reduce carbon intensity in industrial clusters, transport networks, and urban centres. Through international collaboration, standards, certification, and finance mobilisation, the Centre strengthens India’s ability to deploy clean-energy solutions at scale while building exportable capabilities.
Centre of Excellence on Waste
India’s waste landscape includes plastics, tyres, multi-material composites, municipal solid waste, industrial by-products, and hazardous residues. Circularity and resource recovery are hindered by fragmented supply chains, underdeveloped commodity markets, and limited investment infrastructure. The Centre on Waste addresses these constraints by integrating policy, market, and technology approaches to create industrial circularity ecosystems.
The Centre’s work ranges from material-flow mapping and standards development to pilot projects, commercial scale-up, and industry partnerships. It engages recyclers, commodity traders, manufacturers, financiers, and research institutions to develop bankable circular-economy models that convert waste streams into resources. By aligning circularity with industrial strategy and climate objectives, the Centre supports the emergence of modern recycling, repurposing, and remanufacturing industries.
Centre of Excellence on Agriculture
Agriculture is foundational to India’s food security, rural income, and climate resilience. Yet soils, hydrology, cropping patterns, carbon cycles, biofertilisers, and regenerative practices remain under-integrated within market frameworks.
The Centre on Agriculture seeks to bridge agronomy, technology, and commercial economics to support a regenerative and climate-aligned agricultural economy.
The Centre focuses on integrating agricultural science with project development, certification, farmer-extension models, climate finance, and industrial value chains for inputs such as biofertilisers, biomass, and soil-carbon solutions. By advancing research partnerships, international collaboration, FOAK demonstrations, and district-scale pilots, the Centre contributes to productivity, resilience, and environmental restoration. It also creates pathways for emerging agricultural credit, insurance, and carbon-linked instruments.
Centre of Excellence on Transport and Mobility
Transport intersects energy, manufacturing, logistics, digital platforms, and urban planning. India’s mobility transition spans clean fuels, electrification, battery ecosystems, charging infrastructure, multimodal logistics, and vehicle-to-grid systems. The Centre on Transport and Mobility provides a structured framework for research, demonstration, standards, investment, and industrial collaboration across these domains.
It works with OEMs, financiers, utilities, logistics operators, and regulatory institutions to develop viable deployment and finance models for clean mobility. By integrating supply chains, certification standards, workforce training, and infrastructure planning, the Centre accelerates the formation of future mobility corridors, electrified logistics systems, and circular battery economies.
Centre of Excellence on Cross Section - Environment, Climate and Natural Hazards
Climate change and natural hazards—including floods, droughts, heatwaves, cyclones, and extreme events—represent a cross-cutting risk category that affects every other sector. The Centre on Environment, Climate, and Natural Hazards is designed to strengthen climate science, adaptation planning, and resilience finance at both national and district levels. It builds a bridge between climate research, modelling, insurance, infrastructure development, and urban policy.
The Centre supports vulnerability assessments, resilience strategies, disaster-risk reduction programmes, and partnerships with global scientific and institutional actors. It also enables the creation of new financial and risk-transfer instruments, including catastrophe bonds, resilience credits, and adaptation-linked finance, to mitigate systemic shocks while protecting communities, infrastructure, and supply chains.
A Structural Approach to India’s Climate Grand Challenges
Through these Centres of Excellence, Bharatia is establishing a long-term institutional architecture for addressing India’s climate grand challenges. The Centres are not temporary initiatives; they serve as durable platforms for science, innovation, deployment, and finance. They enable India and its global partners to move from demonstration to replication, from policy theory to commercial scale, and from fragmented responses to structural solution pathways.
Comments