The Principal Scientific Adviser (PSA) to the Government of India Prof. K. VijayRaghavan visited CSIR-Institute of Microbial Technology (IMTECH) on 14/07/2018 and addressed members from scientific & industrial community on need for enhanced Industry-Academia engagement in R&D Collaborations.
PSA is on a two day visit to Chandigarh to assess the progress being made by Chandigarh Region Innovation & Knowledge Cluster (CRIKC) and look at the possibility of adopting this model for ‘University-National Research Laboratory (U-NRL) Hub’ (North-western region). Ten U-NRL hubs have been envisaged in India by the office of PSA to strengthen the research ecosystem of the universities. The Chandigarh Cluster comprises of four universities (Panjab University, Punjabi University, Kurukshetra University & Guru Jambeshwar University of Science & Technology) and six NRLs (IMTECH, CSIO, NABI, CIAB, INST& SCL) for greater interaction and linkages between these two sets of institutions.
Speaking at the occasion, Prof. K. VijayRaghavan indicated that “Universities need to be linked closely with National Research Laboratories (NRLs) like CSIR-IMTECH for improving the education and research of universities, sharing of resources of national research institutions and preparing quality manpower as per needs of Indian industry”.
Dr. Anil Koul, Director IMTECH while welcoming PSA to CSIR-IMTECH apprised Prof. K. VijayRaghavan, that steps are already being taken to join hands with the industry and bridge the trust deficit that academia and industry have towards each other. Dr. Koul highlighted IMTECH’s push towards collaborative industry sponsored projects and research and MoU signing with Johnson & Johnson, Epygen Biotech Pvt. Ltd, Zydus Cadila, Oniosome Healthcare. He emphasized that IMTECH’s outreach in industry-academia relationship for various technology transfer & collaborative projects is a step in the right direction. Dr. C.R. Suri from CSIR IMTECH presented the progress on a joint project “Immunochemical based explosives detection” sponsored by Office of PSA, GOI.
Prof. Raghavan also interacted with heads of universities and national research laboratories as well as with CEO’s of various corporate houses and industries to understand their expectations from the scientific community. The member institutes of CRIKC also displayed various technologies developed or commercialized or ready for commercialization to PSA at CSIR-IMTECH.
Prof. Raghavan emphasized the need to translate Science and change the ecosystem towards commercialization. Prof. VijayRaghavan and Dr. Anil Koul emphasized clearly and highlighted the need of investment in R&D by private institutions, as evident from the success of developed economies and progress of IMTECH’s R&D in forging alliance with multinational companies like J&J, Zydus Cadila in the field of global public health and innovative medicines.
The Event Concluded with a panel disucssion with represntation from Academia industry and policy makers. An MOU was also signed beteen CRIKC and TIE (The Industry Enterprises) that promotes entrepreneurships and startups towards increased increased interactions between industry and academia.
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