Human Resource Development Minister calls for closer partnership between academia and industry

Updated on: Tuesday, April 16, 2013

Announcing key initiatives to promote industries-academia collaboration in the country, the Human Resource Development M M Pallam Raju has called for closer partnership between academia and industry on Monday. Speaking at a two-day international workshop on industry academia collaboration for greater national productivity, he said that the gap between the two has to be bridged to enhance employability of our people.

The minister at the end of the workshop said that the ministry would set up an Incubation fund for 100 institutions. The fund will provide seed money for incubating ideas of students and facility.

Raju also informed the participants that the ministry to lunching the National Employability Enhancement Mission (NEEM) through AICTE. The framework will provide a platform for companies and entrepreneurs to provide employability skills and internship as value added proposition to student for all fields. MHRD is also going to set up an academia-industry interface council with representatives of industry and academia to promote collaborations.

Raju also announced that his ministry would identify ten institutes with potential to have research parks at tier 1,2 or 3 level depending on the optimum size industry presence and current level of academia-Industry engagement in the institute. As in the case of IIT Madras Research Park, while the initial funding would come from government, the research park would be expected to raise resources from the market and generate its own revenues later on.

Stressing the need for more contribution from industry in research, the minister said that the most of the funding at present for research and development in the country is coming from the government side. Calling for greater private sector involvement, Raju said that the industry should engage itself more in terms of not only funding but also in skill development, innovation and entrepreneurship. Raju further added that while China spends more that one and a half per cent of its Gross Domestic Product on research and development, India spends less than one per cent.

Speaking on the occasion, the Secretary Higher Education, Ashok Thakur said that the Government had set up three task forces - Research, innovation and entrepreneurship; skill and employability and the ways to foster institutional mechanism. He said that the Government is keen to promote top end research for skill building and the plans to foster ties with academia, industry and the Government. It will come up with a plan within two hundred days.

The Chairman of Confederation of Indian Industries (CII), National Committee on Higher Eduction, Naushad Forbes said that industry is keen to work with academia for its own benefit as the quality of manpower in industry cannot be improved without focusing to quality in academia. He said that CII has taken several steps in this direction including increasing the number of PhD fellowships from one hundred to one thousand and funding of global innovation alliance.

The director IIT, Madras, Ashok Jhunjhunwala presented a model developed for a better academia industry partnership.

Human Resource Development Minister calls for closer partnership between academia and industry

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