The Embassy of Sweden on Monday announced a series of initiatives to further strengthen the cooperation between Sweden and India by establishing a Swedish Office of Science and Technology in New Delhi.

“The Swedish Office of Science and Technology, only the fifth such office worldwide, will serve as a catalyst for research cooperation between the two countries. It will promote exchange of knowledge in areas such as bio-sciences and IT,” said Dr Stefan Jonsson, S and T Counsellor.

The Swedish Office of S and T is part of ITPS (Swedish Institute for Growth Policy Studies).

The Embassy has instituted two prizes for two top ranking students of MSc in Space Science Programme at the Indian Institute of Space Sciences and Technology in Thiruvananthapuram.

The ambitious unmanned moon mission programme of the ISRO will be launched in the second quarter of 2008.

At a press conference here, S Satish, programme director (P and PR) ISRO, said, “Sweden is among the four European countries which will collaborate with India on this mission. It will work on the payload SUBKKM and will be used for 3D Mapping to identify mineral resources on the lunar surface.”