Embassy of India
Ljubljana
Press Release
First Ever India-Slovenia Science Festival on 25-26 September 2025
Embassy of India in collaboration with Slovenian Science Foundation and Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs celebrated the First ever Indian-Slovenian Science Festival on 25-26 September 2025 in Ljubljana. The event follows the successful implementation of the two Slovenian-Indian Science and Innovation Days which were held in February 2024 and January 2025.
Science and technology is one of the important pillars of cooperation between the two countries. The event highlighted the strong India-Slovenia collaboration in the field of science, innovation, smart technologies and economy. The opening remarks were made by Dr. Edvard Kobal, President of the Slovenian Science Foundation and Ambassador of India, Mr. Amit Narang who shared his insights on the progress made by India on science and technology and future collaboration between India and Slovenia. The event had the honour of hosting NASA Astronaut Sunita Williams who is proudly of Indian-Slovenian heritage as its Honorary Patron. On her video message, Ms. Williams commended the initiative as a ‘beautiful example of the spirit of cooperation, bringing together two countries with rich histories of innovation to build a better future’.
The first ever Festival of Science, Innovation, Technologies & Economy saw the collaboration of multiple stakeholders including Slovenian Ministries of Foreign & European Affairs; Higher Education, Research & Innovation as well as Dept of S&T, RIS and IIT Kanpur from India. The Festival saw rich discussions on various facets of S&T cooperation between India and Slovenia, bringing forward new ideas for deepening the bilateral science partnership. Indian experts from Research and Information System for Developing Countries (RIS) (Dr. Sanjeev K Varshney, Dr. Amit Kumar and Dr. Sneha Sinha), IIT, Kanpur (C Ganga) (Mr. Aayush Tiwari and Mr. Rakesh Chandra Mishra) and Prof. Jyoti Sharma, University of Delhi (Gifted children in STEM) presented India’s vision on Science and Technology and Research and Information Development. The speakers during the event presented India’s Multilateral Science Cooperation; Rejuvenating the Innovative Potential of Ingenious Researchers and Engineers and India’s Science Diplomacy.
The first such Science Festival provided opportunities for cooperation between India and Slovenia in various sectors including space, energy, Information Technology, Artificial Intelligence and others, encouraging collaboration in the research projects which are strategically important for both the countries. The Festival saw rich discussions on various facets of S&T cooperation between India and Slovenia, bringing forward new ideas for deepening the bilateral science partnership.
Ljubljana 30 September 2025
