Universities and Industries can now form into R&D clusters

To boost the R&D, the University Grants Commission (UGC) has come out with guidelines on ‘Sustainable and Vibrant University-Industry (UI) Linkage for Indian Universities’.

Hyderabad: Universities and industries can now form into Research and Development (R&D) clusters to address problems of high societal relevance besides equipping students with required skill sets, making them job ready through internships.

To boost the R&D, the University Grants Commission (UGC) has come out with guidelines on ‘Sustainable and Vibrant University-Industry (UI) Linkage for Indian Universities’. As per the guidelines approved by the 570th UGC meeting held on Tuesday and to be made public on June 30 for feedback, the higher educational institutions have been asked to take measures to boost R&D by creating R&D clusters at State or regional levels through UI linkages.

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According to the UGC Chairman Mamidala Jagadesh Kumar the National Educational Policy 2020 recommends vibrant UI linkage, with emphasis on exposing students to real-life examples and making them globally competent.

“The guidelines will promote research and development through collaborations between universities and industries. Establishing the linkages between university and industry will help create training and apprenticeship opportunities in the industries, R&D labs, and research organizations,” Kumar said.

As per guidelines, the institution that serves as the cluster head can establish a regional R&D Advisory Committee that advises the R&D growth in the cluster. The higher educational institutions have to create an Industry Relations Cell (IRC) to enable collaborative project creation between a university faculty group and industry group besides exploring funding sources from various stakeholders. To address and serve its R&D needs, the industries have been asked to create the University Relations Cell (URC).

Both the IRC and URC have to come out with new technologies in the research labs besides tailored made programmes for the industry professionals. The guidelines mandate that credit assignment and distribution of internships will be as per UGC norms and additional internships based on recommendation or students’ interest.

The varsities can appoint highly experienced industry professionals to governance bodies and can also onboard professionals from the industry as ‘Professors of Practice in accordance with the UGC guidelines.