Education is key to development, as it shapes the economy, technology, civilization and culture of a nation.1
Potential of higher education, in India can be effectively harnessed
through university-industry collaborations, to foster job creating
industrial and commercial endeavours. India has an enrolment of 3.3
crore students in higher education2, almost equal to the total population of Canada.3
Yet, India lags far behind in creating productiveintellectual property,
a crucial variable to nurture job creating industrial and commercial
activities, for want of requisite research and innovations into various
knowledge based and intellectual property creating subject areas.
Therefore, inspite of being endowed with rich resource dividend, in
terms of natural wealth and human capital, India has mere 2.9% share in
the nominal world GDP on the basis of exchange rate, and just 2.1% 4 share in world manufacturing, whereas we have more than 16% share in the world population.
Poor State of Research
India
lags far behind in quality research and intellectual property
generation. As is evident from to the data released by the World
Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO)4, India has even
seen a drop in international patent applications to 1,423 under the
Patent Cooperation Treaty in 2015, while the US has 57,385, Japan
(44,235), China (29,846) and Korea (14,626), which figure in the top-10
list, and have registered a rise of 20%, 14% and 7%, respectively, from
last year. India fared no better in terms of global trademark filings as
well, under the Madrid System. It ranked 36th with only 150 trademarks
filed in 2015, down from 153 in 2014, when it had seen a more than 70%
increase in trademark registrations. It shows a very miserable scene on
the front of new product and brand launches by the industry. Against
such a paltry figure of 150 filings by Indian industry, the trademark
filings of the US (7,340), Germany (6,831), France (4,021), China
(2,401), Japan (2,205) are 14 to 48 times. Data from the aforesaid WIPO
report reveal that even the IITs, though endeavoring to move ahead on
research in nanotechnology over other Indian Universities with over
5,000 scientific papers and 14 patents since 1970, are miles and miles
behind China, as the Chinese Academy of Sciences tops with 29,591
publications and 705 patent filings in nanotechnology. The country has a
long distance to go in promoting innovation and research. The figure on
comparing with China is embarrassingly low for the elite institutes,
constituting an icon at home.
University-Industry Collaboration: Alternative Modes
Collaborative
research with a consortium approach, inter se the academia, industry
and government can prove to be a big game changer for breakthrough
research and innovations5 in the
country.
A well facilitating eco-system for collaborative researches and
innovations across a wide range of knowledge-based and intellectual
property centric subject areas has to be cultivated to kick start
development of job creating commercial products and services for
absorbing the 1.2 crore youth attaining the age of employment every year
(one million per month) in the country. Collaborative consortia,
tripartite as well as bipartite, throughout the innovations’ value chain
and transforming such innovations and researches into job creating
products and services may be fostered via 4 discrete forms of
university-industry collabration modes.
(i) Industry consortiums
i.e. Udhyog Sahayata Sangh: Such full fledged consortia may be
tripartite comprising industry, relevant university department(s) and
the government, or bipartite- comprising university and industry.
Industry clusters in different part of country and the university (ies)
can form that industry specific consortium.
(ii) Technology Development Cooperative Associations:
Such association of the firms of any industry and university (ies) may
come together for pursuing target oriented researches for current or
future needs.
(iii) Technology Development Cooperative Agreements: A memorandum of understanding or a legal contract may be signed for shared researches with well defined targets.
(iv) University-Industry-Government-Round Table: Such Round tables can proove collabrative research.
(v) University-Industry Round Table:
Frequent knowledge sharing round tables or for identifying the mutual
expertise, can be organized between industry and university (ies).
The
aforesaid modes of university-industry collaborations can go a long way
and can even invoke techno nationalistic interventions, crucial for
developing homegrown innovative technologies. In US, Europe, Japan,
South Korea, Taiwan etc hundreds of industry consortia are active in
pre-competitive research, technology development, market research,
product development and brand promotions. In US, there are more than
1200 consortia for industries ranging from Photonic, Automobile,
Technology, IT, Pharma, Energy, Agrochemicals, Biotechnology and so on.
China has single mindedly pursued this path of techno nationalism and
has moved towards techno globalism.
Our
share in world shipbuilding is mere 0.1 percent. South Korea, which
accounts for less than 5 percent of the geographical area and population
of India, and having far less than 70 percent of our GDP, today
accounts for 40% of the world-shipbuilding. Needless to say India is the
4th largest steel producer with a large pool of talented
manpower, and a 7100 Km coast line can easily capture at least 10% of
world shipbuilding, if proper policy, design, R&D and fiscal support
is extended by the government. Overall, the South Korea has been
spending 4 % of its GDP on R&D while India spends less than 1
percent of its GDP on R&D, inspite of the government’s repeated
assertions to raise to 2% of our GDP in the science and technology
policy declarations being made since 2003.6 This constraint
of poor funding can partly be overcome by promoting university-industry
collaborative researches. Our pursuits in promoting quality education in
pharmacology and IT have placed in a position to lead in the world. To
the contrary, A single policy support to pharma sector extended in 1970
by replacing the provision of product patents with process patents in
the Indian Patents Act of 1970 and quality education, India could
acquire record 10% share in the world Pharma-Manufacturing by volume.
Besides, we have ushered in a new era in the area of pharma education
and Research & Development just by virtue of this policy support.
Though it is also now bound to erode with our reverting back to product
patents since 2005 and our gradual succumbing to Euro-American pressure
in the field of IPR.
Collaboration between academia and industry is an increasingly critical component7 for facilitating efficient national innovation systems. It is useful to examine the experience of developed countries to better understand the different types of university-industry collaboration, motivations and barriers to such cooperation, as well as the role of public policy in fostering such linkages. Developing countries and especially India faces even greater barriers to such alliances, calling for a bold initiative to promote university-industry collaborations. Such collaborations between universities and industries are critical for several purposes viz (i) for capacity building and skills development via joint teaching and training, (ii) for the generation of new and fresh knowledge and foster innovations through technology sharing, and (iii) for the promotion of entrepreneurship through incubation for start-ups and spin-offs, and also through R&D Partnerships.8
Collaboration between academia and industry is an increasingly critical component7 for facilitating efficient national innovation systems. It is useful to examine the experience of developed countries to better understand the different types of university-industry collaboration, motivations and barriers to such cooperation, as well as the role of public policy in fostering such linkages. Developing countries and especially India faces even greater barriers to such alliances, calling for a bold initiative to promote university-industry collaborations. Such collaborations between universities and industries are critical for several purposes viz (i) for capacity building and skills development via joint teaching and training, (ii) for the generation of new and fresh knowledge and foster innovations through technology sharing, and (iii) for the promotion of entrepreneurship through incubation for start-ups and spin-offs, and also through R&D Partnerships.8
Besides
the aforesaid consortium, approach some other modes to promote
university-industry collaboration and cooperation can also be evolved.
Such modes may be like: (i) R&D incentives and grants
(ii) Performance-based funding of universities and reward systems for
researchers (iii) Intellectual property rights regime and technology
transfer offices (iv) Science parks,
spin-offs, and business incubators (v) Shared Education and training programmes 9
Experiences
from across the globe suggest that businesses can structure their
relationships with universities in ways that can,
surely make them much more valuable.10 Though the idea of “gap between research done in academia and its translation into marketable products, is not new.11 But, successful partnerships are growing. Both academic institutions and companies are making rapid strides to bridge the gap.12
The focus of all such collaborative research endeavors has also to be
to invoke techno-nationalistic interventions to take a leap ahead in
employment generating industry and commerce.
India
can take a quantum leap with techno-nationalist focus in research and
innovations, and the first step would be to identify the focus areas for
the collaborative researches or coordinated studies, based upon the
capabilities in the universities and the industry and the nation. The
first step to move ahead in this direction would be needs to break the
ice through university-industry round tables to be organized at the
location of each of the 400 industry clusters in the country for
brainstorming and identifying areas of strength and cooperation. Such
round tables would help to pin-point the areas of common interest,
relative strengths and scope to collaborate. Industry specific
‘University-Industry’ consortia or technology development cooperative
associations and agreements would automatically follow. The Association
of Indian Universities (AIU) being the sole umbrella organization of the
academician can take initiative and move ahead in this direction to
coordinate with the multiple industry bodies like FICCI, ASSOCHAM, CII,
PHDCCI, Laghu Udhyog Bharti and also to rope in the Union and state
governments.
- karmayogi.net/?q=educationthekeydevlopment
- Rohini Singh DNA 14 July, 2016 ” Indian education sectore continues to remains unpopular amongst foreign students, New Delhi
- www.statcan.gc.ca/daily-quotidien
- www.wipo.int/edocs/mdocs/…/wipo../wipo_msmes_del_10_ref_theme_06_01.ppt
- Larkin Marilynn building successful partnership between academia and industry.
- science, technology and innovation policy 2013.
www.dst.gov.in/st-system-india/science-and-technology-policy2013 - Guimon Jose Promoting university-Industry collaboration developing countries. innovationpolicyplatform.org
- Ibid
- Ibid
- Markus Perkmann and Ammon Salter, How to Create Productive Partnerships With Universities
Magazine, Summer 2012 Research Feature June 18, 2012. - Ibid. 5
- Ibid. 5
