India and France have adopted the India-France Innovation Roadmap 2030, a comprehensive bilateral framework covering artificial intelligence, academic mobility, startup ecosystems, space, and health data, according to a government statement.
The roadmap builds on the “Special Global Strategic Partnership” declared by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Emmanuel Macron on February 17, 2026, when both leaders jointly inaugurated the India-France Year of Innovation 2026.
Aeronautics training campus in Kanpur
One of the roadmap’s most concrete deliverables is a new aeronautical training facility. France and India will establish an aeronautical training campus in Kanpur in partnership with the Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship (MSDE), to develop and share training offerings in the aeronautics sector. The statement describes aeronautics as a “prominent and strategic sector” for the bilateral partnership.
30,000 Indian students in France by 2030
On academic mobility, both sides acknowledge the importance of France’s objective of welcoming 30,000 Indian students by 2030 and reaffirm their commitment to strengthening people-to-people ties as a foundation of the bilateral partnership.
To support this, both sides intend to expand the Mutual Recognition of Qualifications (MRQ) framework. France became the first country to conclude an MRQ agreement with India in 2018; both sides now express intention to work towards an expanded and updated framework encompassing a broader range of academic disciplines, regulated professions, and emerging technology domains.
The updated framework is expected to facilitate dual-degree programmes and doctoral co-supervision arrangements.
19 MOUs signed on the education side
Moreover, 19 institutional agreements were signed alongside the roadmap, including MoUs between IIT Bombay and Institut Polytechnique de Paris, IIT Delhi and Institut Mines-Télécom, IIT Hyderabad and Dassault Systeme, IIT Tirupati and Safran Electronics and Defense, IISc Bengaluru and Université Grenoble Alpes, and IIT Gandhinagar and BlaBlaCar, among others.
India-France InnoXchange Bridge
On startups, both sides acknowledge the potential of the India-France InnoXchange Bridge as a bilateral startup and innovation exchange initiative aimed at establishing a dedicated research and entrepreneurship corridor between the two countries.
The InnoXchange Bridge could provide structured and reciprocal access to research laboratories, technology platforms, innovation clusters, investors and startup ecosystems in both countries, enabling startups and innovators to undertake research residencies, collaborative innovation immersion programmes, and soft landings across both jurisdictions.
Trusted AI and child safety partnership
Both countries agree to make ‘trusted AI’ a central pillar of their innovation partnership, building on the India-France Declaration on Artificial Intelligence of February 2025 and the AI Action and Impact Summits hosted by the two countries in 2025 and 2026.
India and France also agreed to deepen cooperation on child safety online as a priority of their AI partnership, developing synergies including privacy-preserving age assurance, safety-by-design architectures, and outcome-based safety standards for AI systems that materially interact with children.
Space cooperation and health data sharing
India and France will host two international space events during the same week: the Bengaluru Space Expo on September 7-9 in Bengaluru, and the International Space Summit on September 9-10 in Paris, focused on Earth observation, human exploration, and India’s future space station in Low Earth Orbit.
On health, both sides will work on consent-based architectures for secure data sharing, building on a pilot project involving India’s ICMR and France’s Health Data Hub, with the intent to scale the model to other sectors and extend it to Global South partners.
