Our relationship with India
1 Prime Minister Narendra Modi unveils the statue of Mahatma Gandhi at Roma Street Parklands in Brisbane in 2014 (Source - The Hindu)
As of 2022, people from India are the second largest immigrant group moving to Australia. The Indian diaspora in Queensland, with more than 90,000 people of Indian ancestry, is supported by over 30 India cultural associations including the Indian Council of Australia Queensland and the Federation of Indian Communities.
Queensland welcomed the Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi, for the G20 Brisbane Summit of world leaders in 2014 where he inscribed “Research is the mother of invention. The development journey of mankind is a continuous stream of research” on one of Queensland University of Technology’s world-leading robots.
The only cities in Australia twinned with an Indian city are Queensland’s capital Brisbane and our second largest city, Ipswich. They have both been tripartite sister cities with the capital of Telangana state, Hyderabad, since 2010.
Queensland enjoys longstanding trade, economic, business, education and cultural links with India, highlighted by the hundreds of Indian academics, researchers and students currently based in Queensland. Existing partnerships between Queensland and India range from science and innovation to entrepreneurship, research translation and commercialisation. Continuing to strengthen these relationships is important to us.
We are working to build more strategic knowledge-based partnerships with India’s leading institutions such as the collaboration between the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) and the University of Southern Queensland (UniSQ). UniSQ has also partnered with India on other areas of common interest, such as agriculture engineering and climate change with several agricultural research institutes in India, and aviation management programs with IndiGo airlines.
Indian students make up the largest cohort of international students at the Central Queensland University (CQUniversity)—Australia’s largest regional university. CQUniversity has a 10-year partnership with Delhi-based charity, Salaam Baalak, which has resulted in more than 85 former street children accessing higher education through CQUniversity financial scholarships. In 2022, CQUniversity and O.P. Jindal Global University (JGU) signed a Memorandum of Understanding that will see the two universities provide education pathways for students in both countries.
Prof Sagadevan Mundree briefs PM of India Mr Narendra Modi in 2014 on a food security program at QUT to enable pulses to be more drought tolerant (Source QUT).
The University of Queensland (UQ)—ranked among the world’s top universities (as measured by several key independent rankings)—has a valued relationship with India based on decades of academic and industry partnerships, student mobility, and commercialisation opportunities. UQ collaborates with a range of Indian organisations, including the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, with whom they share a joint PhD program. UQ’s top co-publishing partners are Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)—Hyderabad, and Council of Scientific & Industrial Research (CSIR).
As part of the Queensland Government’s 2022-2032 Trade and Investment Strategy, Study Queensland has appointed Directors of Research of Partnerships in four key international markets, including our Trade and Investment Queensland - Investment Director - South Asia based in Bengaluru. Their roles include attracting research investment to Queensland science and identifying new research collaborations.
The connections between Queensland organisations and businesses and India’s states and union territories are also supported by the Australian Government with agreements and support mechanisms.