The area of cognitive sciences is a unique cross-disciplinary field of social and behavioural sciences (SBS), which brings psychology and neuroscience. However, cognitive sciences in Russian Federation (RF) are largely framed as a psychology-only discipline, while in India they are sparse with only a few premier institutions. This limitation may stem from (1) a highly conservative educational tradition that has resisted incorporating modern approaches into curricula, (2) the lack of interdisciplinary approaches in teaching cognitive sciences and neurobiology, and (3) the lack of international perspective in education. Altogether, this makes the education in cognitive fields less competitive on the international market and less attractive to students, even though the need in experts is very high. We believe that the essential priorities are to promote interdisciplinary fields of cognitive sciences and to include more neuroscience-related disciplines into curriculum of psychology in RF. This, however, poses a serious challenge, as training in neuroscience is more time-consuming. To address these challenges, the project will implement neuroscience curriculum in psychology in a unified Master-PhD track, aimed at streamlining multidisciplinary education in RF. The curriculum of advanced courses will be developed based on expertise of leading higher education institutions (HEIs) in psychology and neuroscience. The project particularly focuses at introducing innovative knowledge on neuronal basis of cognitive functions to core education in SBS. We aim at coordinating curricula at Master and PhD levels to raise the quality of cross-disciplinary PhD projects. The new Master-PhD direct track will provide both a more competitive environment and a better-defined career perspective, which will help to attract higher-quality students to RF and India HEIs. The project will foster internationalization of RF HEIs and the capacity of our network in education in cognitive sciences.

About 2.1 Billion people live without access to safe water sources. Contaminants of Emerging Concerns (CECs) such as pharmaceuticals, personal care products, pesticides and nanoparticles are increasingly being detected in wastewater and in drinking water around the world, in addition to geogenic pollutants, pathogens, antibiotic resistant bacteria and antibiotic resistance genes. Water treatment systems that remove CECs and common contaminants from wastewater and drinking water are therefore urgently needed. PANI WATER will develop, deploy and validate in the field six prototypes for the removal of contaminants, including CECs, from wastewater and drinking water. The prototypes for wastewater treatment will consist of (i) a 20,000 L/day multifunctional oxidation reactor, (ii) a 10 L/day photoelectrochemical system, and (iii) a 100 L/day solar photolytic plant. The prototypes for drinking water treatment will consist of (iv) a 300 L/hour filtration, adsorption, and UVC LED system (v) a 20 L transparent jerrycan for solar water disinfection, and (vi) a 2,000 L/day electrocoagulation, oxidation, and disinfection t system. These prototypes will be deployed in peri-urban and rural areas in India. The consortium will work closely with the communities at the fieldsites, and carry out water quality analyses, health and social impact assessments, and advocate for safe reuse of treated wastewater for irrigation, and preservation of drinking water sources. PANI technologies can find promising application among the agricultural sector, water-demanding businesses (e.g. textile, pharmaceutical), and the Indian water utilities.