At the Climate Conference in India, Harvard’s South Asia connections take the spotlight

When invited in 2010 to spearhead what would evolve into the Lakshmi Mittal and Family South Asia Institute, Tarun Khanna, the Jorge Paulo Lemann Professor at Harvard Business School, proposed two core principles. Firstly: he envisioned the establishment to be inclusive of all domains of inquiry. Secondly: he aimed for “feet on the street” throughout South Asia.

The climate adaptation summit titled “India 2047: Creating a Climate-Resilient Future,” co-organized by the Mittal Institute and the Salata Institute for Climate and Sustainability in partnership with the Indian government, exemplifies Khanna’s drive for a robust, interdisciplinary connection between the University and the region, as over 160 scholars and specialists from Harvard and around the globe convene to tackle the issue of climate change in India.

This summit forms part of the institute’s ongoing initiative concerning climate change concentrated on South Asia. Since 2023, when the Mittal Institute conducted its inaugural climate-focused workshop in New Delhi, it has been channeling efforts into advancing climate-change adaptation research. Among various initiatives, its Community Heat Adaptation and Treatment Strategies venture, initially funded by the Salata Institute, has examined the health impacts of extreme temperatures on workers through sensors worn by the participants throughout the day. This research will establish one of the largest data sets concerning heat and health globally.

The leaders of this research — epidemiologist Caroline Buckee and associate professor in emergency medicine Satchit Balsari — will participate in the India conference and engage in workshops over several days in New Delhi, along with a multi-day “climate immersion experience” for senior faculty and analysts in Ahmedabad, where the Mittal Institute initially conducted measurements on heat stress. Among other discussions, the group will examine connections between extreme heat and poverty, food security, rural livelihoods, and environmental degradation.

This multifaceted strategy — involving collaboration with Harvard and the Indian government’s Ministry of Environment, Forest, and Climate Change alongside its public policy think tank NITI Aayog — reflects the Mittal Institute’s inclination toward a variety of collaborators and research areas.

In recent years, the institute has enabled collaborative bioscience and biotechnology research between Boston and Bangalore through its initiative Building Bharat-Boston Biosciences; facilitated studies on pigments in traditional Indian art; and united researchers from the U.S., England, Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan to examine the repercussions of the 1947 partition of British India. From the outset, Khanna remarked, the institute has strived to support intellectual pursuits across the sciences, social sciences, and humanities equally.

Moreover, it has remained committed to Khanna’s ambition for “feet on the street.” The institute has established a tangible presence throughout South Asia, with offices in New Delhi and Lahore and representation in various other countries — each contributing project funding from their respective nations. “For us to function with any level of credibility, any level of acceptance in a foreign land, people need to start viewing you as engaging with their societies rather than being an outsider,” Khanna emphasized.

The relationships will prominently feature at the conference, where Harvard faculty such as Sturgis Hooper Professor of Geology Daniel Schrag, Vice Provost for Climate and Sustainability James Stock, and Professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences Peter Huybers will collaborate with colleagues across Harvard’s Schools of business, medicine, and public health alongside several agencies of the Indian government. “We possess significant goodwill,” Khanna expressed. “Particularly in an era when higher education is viewed with skepticism, it’s an invaluable asset.”

As the occasion progresses, one of the largest gatherings organized by Harvard outside the U.S., Khanna envisions it as merely the beginning for the Mittal Institute — with numerous years of collaboration and innovation ahead.