Universities, industries can collaborate to form R&D clusters now: UGC chairman

NEW DELHI: Universities and industries will now be able to form Research and Development (R and D) clusters collaboratively at state and Central level to address the technological needs of the region, according to UGC Chairman Jagadesh Kumar.

The clusters would enable students to acquire skill sets that make them job-ready through internships. The cluster could create a technology-centric mechanism to capture the local problems and then assign the same projects to the students who in turn could earn credits out of the assignments.

The University Grants Commission (UGC) on Tuesday approved the "Guidelines for Sustainable University-Industry Collaboration in Indian Universities" which will be released later this week for public feedback.

"Higher educational institutions have been asked to take measures to boost research and development by creating R&D clusters at State or regional levels through University-Industry (UI) linkages. The NEP recommended vibrant UI linkage, with emphasis on exposing students to real-life examples and making them globally competent," Kumar said.

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"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," he added.

According to the guidelines, 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.

"The institution that serves as the cluster head can establish a regional Advisory Committee that advises the R&D growth in the cluster. 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 industry professionals," it added. 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.