IIT Delhi, Kharagpur and Kanpur look for corporate push in an attempt to scale up research activities
The country's premier tech institutes are considering corporate-funded
science parks and research centres as they plan to massively scale up their
research activities.Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) of Delhi, Kharagpur
and Kanpur have laid out extensive plans to establish state-of-art centres for
research.
IIT
Bombay has already started groundwork for establishing a research park on the
campus while IIT Madras, which already has successfully built a research park,
is working towards a second one in Chennai.
These
institutes plan to approach corporates to funds these projects, which they say
will also help deal with faculty shortage as professors love to do research.
IIT Delhi
has already floated an expression of interest to all prominent stakeholders in
the industry for setting up two research centres in Haryana that would need
funds upwards of . 200 crore, said Suneet Tuli, dean of re` search at the
institute.
The IIT,
which is already working towards setting up of a ` . 150-crore mini science
park within its campus, is working towards setting up parks in Sonepat and
Jhajjar in Haryana, which will create massive capacity for heavy researches in
bio-chemical, mechanical and electronic engineering space, apart from
high-performance computing and handling huge backend operations.
IIT
Kanpur is roping in its professors to get sponsorship from the industry to hold
research projects in the domain specific to companies at a proposed research
complex within its campus.
“Only the
faculty with highest bids will get the space for research for a limited number
of years based on institute's evaluation,“ said AK Chaturvedi, deputy director
at IIT Kanpur.
The
institute will need around ` . 120 crore for this complex and it has set a
target of a year for this ambitious plan. IIT Kanpur already has an incubation
and innovation centre in place where around 30 companies can work
simultaneously.
IIT
Kharagpur is also working to wards setting up a research centre in Kolkata with
the help of the state government. “We should be able to roll out our first
activities out of this centre by 2017,“ said Indranil Sengupta of the computer
science and engineering department and in-charge of the incubation
entrepreneurship at the oldest IIT in the country.
The
Indian government is also laying a lot of thrust on conducting industry funded
research at IITs, according to a senior government official who did not wish to
reveal his identity. “Research centres and science parks will help incubate
best of companies and bridge the academia with the outside world. It will
definitely provide opportunities to the faculty to fulfil their ideas,“ said TV
Mohandas Pai, director of Manipal Universal Learning, who was also a former
Infosys chief financial officer.
IIT
Bombay, which recently set up a Biomedical Engineering and Technology
(Incubation) Centre (BETiC) for physicians and engineers, is in the process of
establishing a National Centre of Excellence in Technology for Internal
Security (NCETIS). NCETIS will primarily develop solutions around security for
police and paramilitary forces.
“It will
try and engage with industry partners for possible commercialisation of the
technologies developed,“ said IIT Bombay director Devang Khakhar.
He said
the groundwork for establishing a research park on the campus had also started.
Partially funded by the MHRD, an initial grant of ` . 100 crore has been agreed
upon.
“The idea
is to build an ecosystem where IITB academic researchers and industry partners
work in collaboration on cutting edge research problems and product
innovation,“ Khakhar said.
IIT
Madras, which already has successfully built a research park, is now working
towards its second in Chennai with the support of the state government.
“Research driven by faculty and funded by industry is healthy for the IITs.
With the additional 200 acres granted by the state government, we are focusing
on setting up another large research centre,“ said its director, Bhaskar
Ramamurthy.
Source | Economic Times | 9 June
2015
Regards
Pralhad Jadhav
Khaitan & Co
9665911593
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