Foreseeing a huge demand for trained professionals in areas of clean energy and carbon control in Indian companies, the University of Edinburgh is in discussions with several public and private sector companies to explore their skill requirements. It is looking to forge partnerships with leading Indian institutes for research and development in these fields too.

The university, which is offering courses on carbon management and environment law among others, is seeing a shift in mindsets of companies towards hiring professionals explicitly trained in clean energy and related issues. The interest can be attributed to efforts to curtail energy use and in turn control their costs.

Skill requirement

“We are seeing interest in Indian companies picking up employees with specialisation in these areas… They are beginning to see the need for professional skills not just in their own organisations but also within their supply chains as this really helps them reduce energy use and therefore reduce costs. So the conversations that we are having with companies this seems to be an important element in professional skills learning over the next four to five years,” said the Director of Edinburgh Centre on Climate Change, Dr Andrew Kerr.

He added that one of the reasons why companies would have requirement for trained professionals in these areas more than before is because they are going global, and “there are emerging regulations around the world requiring companies to meet certain standards on how to reduce energy use and how to reduce carbon emissions.”

“India is likely to need $100 billion invested up to 2020 and over $500 billion invested by 2030 in low carbon energy technologies to meet energy needs and to meet emissions reduction expectations,” said Dr Kerr, quoting figures from International Energy Agency (IEA) World Energy Outlook 2009, a global energy think tank.

“There will be a need for professional skills to support these huge investments and our role will be working with partners, for developing and delivering those skills,” he added.

IIT-Bombay in talks

University of Edinburgh officials met their counterparts at the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, recently to explore strengths around different areas such as climate change, educational learning and research and on ways in which both could work together to develop some of these ideas.