Intended Process for Collaboration

An indicative process that describes the facilitation process by the Office of the PSA, Government of India is detailed as below:

• To begin with, Industry partners would share the R&D or the new product problem statement or request for setting up of CoE on any emerging technology with the Office of the PSA, GoI. 
• Upon receiving a new R&D/product problem, the Communication team at the Office of PSA, GoI would share the challenge (details of the problem) with all Science and Technologies clusters, Institutes of Eminence, National Incubators, Startup India, AGNI Invest India, Atal Incubators.
• The interested academic institution(s) [individually or collectively] and/or MSMEs and startups can then provide a proposal/approach on how they would work to solve the identified problem. 
• The Office of the PSA, GoI would collate the proposals and share the same with the Industry partner. It can also help the Industry in getting an independent market assessment done by experts in the domain, to help the industry make the decision on whether to fund the academic institute for the product/prototype development or whether it is more feasible for in-house execution.
• Upon identification of the best route/path to proceed, the selected academic institute and Industry to undertake an MoU and execute the project until the prototype stage. If the optimal path necessitates a requirement of a supply chain outside of the Industry, the consortium of the Institute and Industry can jointly handpick the MSMEs or start-ups to fulfill the requirements.
• Execution of the project under the MoU will be monitored by the Office of PSA, GoI to ensure the production of required outcomes. 

Upon successful prototyping stage, Industry will further execute the product development activities, leading to introduction and sales of the new product offerings. All the above activities shall be facilitated through an online portal supported by the Office of the PSA, GoI, eventually leading to successful STI cluster development. The Portal over has the potential to become an integrated platform for STI-led innovation for the country. 

The initial outputs of the industry-academia collaboration, or the CoEs that get established as a response to the Industry request can then serve as national knowledge assets which can be harnessed for capacity building/reuse based on the context and requirements.