ANNUAL REPORT
FOR THE YEAR 2013 - 2014

INDUSTRY ACADEMIA COLLABORATION IN THE AGE OF CLIMATE CHANGE: Announcing the Centre for Energy and Climate Excellence – a new initiative for West Bengal on 12th February 2014, Chamber premises

The Bengal Chamber of Commerce and Industry, India’s oldest institution of its kind, tracing its origins to 1833, and Jadavpur University (JU), a pride of the State and a renowned centre of learning in the country, together with DFIC Management Consultants (Germany and India) have set up a “Centre for Energy and Climate Excellence (CECE)”, the focus of which is to undertake consulting and research-based activities towards meeting the needs of businesses in the realms of energy conservation, energy planning and sustainable management practices. The overarching objective is to create a business model for value added services in energy and environment management.

The focus is to offer and execute various R&D Projects, Consultancy Services, Software Development, Management Development Programmes (MDPs) and other similar activities in the fields of energy and climate change mitigation and allied areas for delivering quality solutions to the public and private sectors while simultaneously working towards improving industry-academia collaborations.

In the context of energy policies of the Government governed by Climate Change related compulsions, the Centre perfectly blends the professional and academic knowhow with industry needs and international knowledge access. This also creates a great opportunity to connect the students of JU with live projects and thus enable dissemination of knowledge and expertise while improving employability.

One of the country’s leading research and academic institutions, JU is providing necessary subject specific knowledge through the faculty or researchers, while undertaking research-based / backed project work. The Bengal Chamber is providing the platform for this unique combination to work together while reaching out to the potential partners. DFIC is bringing to the table their project management expertise and international best practices and knowhow.

CECE is a self sustaining organization and point of reference for energy and climate mitigation related issues for the public sector units and MSMEs and corporates with international knowhow and local expertise.

To formalize the Centre for Energy and Climate Excellence, the three institutions signed a Memorandum of Understanding at 11.30 a.m. on 12th February 2014 in the Bengal Chamber premises. The three partners were represented by their organizational heads, namely, Mr. P Roy, Director General, The Bengal Chamber of Commerce and Industry; Prof. Abhijit Chakrabarti, Vice Chancellor and Dr. Pradip Kumar Ghosh, Registrar, Jadavpur University and Mr. Peter P Mueller, Director, DFIC Management Consultants Pvt. Ltd.