Government officials from the Indian state of Telangana, including Deputy Chief Minister Mallu Bhatti Vikramarka, visited UC Berkeley’s India Energy & Climate Center earlier this month to discuss strategies for reaching India’s clean energy goals.
The India Energy & Climate Center, or IECC, operates under the Goldman School of Public Policy. Its advisory board brings on industry experts from outside of campus, including Pradeep Kumar Pujari, former Ministry of Power secretary to the government of India.
According to Goldman School of Public Policy spokesperson Bora Reed, the visit from Telangana officials was an “academic and technical exchange” about clean-energy technologies and their potential applications.
Discussion between IECC researchers and Telangana representatives covered solar and energy storage, clean power and industrial decarbonization.
IECC’s website states an interest in facilitating “strategic US-India dialogue,” which Reed noted is an academic platform, not a political one. The center works on “translating” research into collaboration with policymakers and cites the global climate crisis, the scale of pollution in India and India’s potential future leadership in clean energy as driving motivators for its work.
Although the center collaborates with members of the Indian government, Reed said IECC is not in partnership with either the U.S. or Indian governments and receives its funding from philanthropic gifts and grants. The center focuses on nonpartisan academic research and policy.
“We focus on India because of the scale and rapid growth of its energy system and the importance of the choices India makes for energy security, economic development, and global climate outcomes,” Reed said in an email. “We also aim to share relevant lessons from India’s clean-energy experience.”
Recent publications from IECC include a roadmap for transitioning India from diesel to electric trucks, as well as a study of the mortality caused by heatwaves in India. That study, published in May, found that one day of extreme heat could cause about 3,400 deaths in India, while a five-day heatwave could cause up to 30,000.
Some national media outlets in India, including The Hindu and the Times of India, regularly report on IECC studies.
IECC, which launched in 2023, isn’t campus’s first collaborative effort with researchers in India. In 2008, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory announced the Berkeley-India Joint Leadership on Energy and the Environment. This collaboration supported similar efforts to IECC’s current work, including the development of energy-efficient and renewable energy technology and “policy innovation.”
Indian international students have an outsized presence at UC Berkeley, accounting for 10.6% of all international students in fall 2025, according to the Berkeley International Office.