New Delhi, April 10 (IANS): In a bid to promote the use of big data methods in biological applications, six Indian institutes of higher education on Wednesday established the first joint Indo-German research training group (RTG).

The six institutes -- Indian Institutes of Technology at Guwahati, Kanpur and Madras, University of Allahabad, University of Delhi and Jawaharlal Nehru University -- will partner with Germany's Heidelberg University, and Department of Biotechnology (DBT) under the Ministry of Science and Technology.

The programme aims at setting up as many as 50 Ph.D. projects, on "Bio Big Data Science", which will be supervised by research teams consisting of leading Indian and German scientists.

"The topics of this research training group are highly relevant for developing the biotechnology industry in both countries," Michael J. Winckler, Programme Coordinator at Heidelberg, said in a statement.

The first funding of the programme will be between 2019 and 2025 with an investment of three million euros each from Heidelberg and DBT, the statement said.