University-Industry linkage

In today’s globalized economy, knowledge had become the prime mover and an engine that energizes societal progress and economic development. Technology is the direct progeny of the academic and research endeavor carried out at the institutions of higher learning. As such the universities have become the prime source of ideas that are increasingly being translated into viable market commodities in the shape of products, processes, and procedures. More than 75 % of patents registered in the United States have their origin in the universities. The university-industry linkage and industry-academia collaboration and partnership have increased the possibilities than ever before to convert the knowledge and innovative ideas into commercial undertakings. The higher education institutions are increasingly creating spin-off companies. The technology parks are increasingly being created and clustered around credible universities and research outfits and are being populated by the young entrepreneurs. The level of interaction with the industry in various forms had become one very important measure of credibility of the academic institutions. The needs for the functional knowledge and relevance of education that can be readily converted into commercial undertaking have increased. The universities have increased their focus to tailor the curricula to address the growing needs of the industry to produce functional science and engineering workforce. It is not to say that the knowledge of basic sciences had become irrelevant. Examples of converting the abstract knowledge from basic sciences into very strong commercial products are not uncommon.

Societies are becoming more and more knowledge intensive and the businesses that are based on very specialized knowledge and stay at the cutting edge of technology are likely to be more competitive and certainly more profitable in the long run than traditional businesses. The governments have also realized that the higher education is one of the main ingredients in economic development equation because of higher education’s potential in creating new knowledge and transforming that knowledge into marketable technologies. The industry alone, the universities alone, the research organizations alone or the government alone could not compete in global socio-techno-economic environment. These four major players will have to make a team and how a winning team could emerge is a focus of this talk.

Keeping in view the above reality the Higher Education Commission has invited universities to develop University-Industry linkages and a major portion of this linkages and research programs will be funded under this scheme. The industry is also required to contribute part of the research projects. This is not a new idea; elsewhere in the world university-industry linkage is a convention and a norm. We have approached many prospective partners to interact with us and discuss with us about their problems that require research and in areas where university can be helpful. This way our students and researchers will have a ready linkage with the functional domains in relevant disciplines. They will cherish the necessity of partnership, understand the conditions for partnership, broaden their vision from the practical perspectives, will get educated about forms and mechanisms of collaboration, barriers to collaboration and tools to overcome these barriers as well as the governance of the partnerships. The industry alone, the universities alone, the research organizations alone or the government alone could not compete in globalization environment. HEC’s University-Industry linkage program will definitely help these major players to make a winning team.