Innovation and Science @Bharat, formerly known as ‘Industry Foundation Engagement’ of the Office of Principal Scientific Adviser, has over the past year facilitated partnerships between Industry, Foundation, academia, startups, MSMEs, through coalitions, consortia both national and international. The deliberations that followed saw demand from the industries and foundations feeding into academia and start-up ecosystem’s strategy of developing innovative solutions to meet them. The Industry-Academia collaborations over the last year have supported (a) joint R&D or contracted industry R&D; (b) establishment of Centres of Excellence (CoE) by industry in academia, and (c) finding innovative solutions for social development.
Download information on Innovation and Science @Bharat initiative.
COVID-19 changed the way we do science, develop technology-based solutions, and innovate. A lot of it also happened in India. One of the primary reasons it could happen is the encouragement that academia got through industry partnerships. It is in these partnerships that we saw, a textile-based company tapping its technological knowhow to make better fabrics for frontline workers at higher risk of getting infected; a philanthropic organization doing its bit to support epidemiological modelling to track the spread of infection across the country; a national bank allocating funds to propel an IIT’s efforts in drug repurposing; and a multinational corporation contributing for mass production of COVID-19 testing kits. Partnerships were made in numbers like never before, to accomplish common goals; the most important goal now being fighting back the pandemic, and preparing for future outbreaks by building a stronger health care system.
Read here some of the success stories that the Office of PSA enabled.
Agriculture
Health
COVID-19 vaccine roll-out
Safe Housing
Partnerships between academia and industries has had an enormous impact to ensure the fight against COVID-19 pandemic is rapid and effective. As the vaccination drive begins, the partnerships need to diversify into areas important to ensure the roll-out reaches the last mile.
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sapnapoti@ia.iitm.ac.in
A review of the current ecosystem of science and technology interactions between the Indian industry, academia, start-ups and MSMEs indicates several gaps.
The plugging of gaps would assist in realizing a vibrant, effective, and thriving system that can support India’s social and economic development. The industry members are the ones that are best placed to identify the problems and challenges in society. The majority of the start-ups and MSMEs currently are out of the National incubation and research park’s ambit and do not receive formal capacity building. To alleviate these challenges, working in a cluster mode is essential to reduce duplication of efforts and to leverage the strengths of each other.
The Office of PSA to the Government of India has proposed a facilitation process to develop these Science and Technologies Innovation clusters to work closely with Industry, Academia, and MSMEs/Start-ups. This would also ensure capacity building of the MSME sector. The end result of such collaborations would be optimal utilization of each other’s strengths and be able to develop technologies or provide scientific solutions for Social Development/National Missions.
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Kisanmitr: An initiative to support farmers become Atmanirbhar (self-reliant) | Sanrachna: Enabling Collaboration for Self-Reliance in Technology |
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Dr. Sapna Poti, Programme Director | Ms. Aaditi Lele, Industry academia engagement group | Mr. Bhanu Prabhakar, Industry academia engagement group |
The industry in collaboration with academia and MSMEs/start-ups would develop new products and offerings.
The academia will get an opportunity to further the research in key areas as part of addressing the industry problems.
Start-ups and MSMEs can participate in providing solutions to the above challenges which would enable their growth and capacity building.
The country would ultimately benefit from this process by synergizing the combined strengths of these three pillars to address challenges in agriculture, water, waste management, and other key areas.
The proposed facilitation process opens up many possibilities of collaborations and partnerships.
The industry-academia collaboration would support joint R&D and contracted R&D efforts to create new products (up to prototype stage).
It will facilitate coming together of more than one academic institution to solve the industry problem, leading to a model of industry-academia collaboration with a cluster of institutes.
Involving the MSMEs and start-ups for component development and/or product manufacturing to address the industry problems by the industry-academia consortium would also result in capacity building of MSMEs/start-ups.
This will lead to new innovations resulting on account of cluster development through industry-academia and MSMEs/start-ups.
This collaborative structure can be leveraged to obtain innovative solutions for social development. Science and technologies are key for social impact in areas such as Water, Waste management, Agriculture, Air pollution etc.
It will also provide opportunities to Ph.D. Students, who contributed through research projects or special internship to solve industry defined problems. As the facilitation process evolves, the entire Ph.D. student community in the country across disciplines can be integrated on a unified platform – which the industry and academia can tap to help and resolve the specific challenges.
The other possible structures for collaboration are the establishment of Centers of Excellence by either the industry or academia. Industry can set up a Centre of Excellence (CoE) in any academic institute or break it into smaller CoEs in different institutes to further the R&D and promote innovations using sophisticated equipment and lab facilities.
An indicative process that describes the facilitation process by the Office of the PSA, Government of India is detailed as below:
New R&D Problem
Disseminate the problem to STI cluster
Independent Evaluation of possible solutions
Formal MoU for project execution by industry and Academia
Implementing the solution by leveraging SMEs, Start-ups, Incubators
Achieve the intended results due to successful collaborative execution.
An indicative process that describes the facilitation process by the Office of the PSA, Government of India is detailed as below:
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.
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