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ACCENT JOURNAL OF ECONOMICS ECOLOGY & ENGINEERING Peer Reviewed and Refereed Journal, ISSN NO. 2456-1037

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A STUDY ON CHALLENGES AND BEST PRACTICES IN ACADEMIA- INDUSTRY

LINKAGES OF INDIA

Ms. Madhu Singh, Ms. Sonia Sharma, Ms. Reeta Budhani

Head of Computer Science, Assistant Professor, Computer Science, SHGC, Affiliated to Barkatullah University, Bhopal, India

Abstract- This study has been undertaken to examine the objectives, challenges and best practices of industry- academia linkages. Studies have shown the benefits of industry- academic collaborations for the students, faculty and industry partners. The dynamic forces operating within the industry-research institution linkages are analysed in this paper. The aim of this research paper is to outline what is the importance of industry- academia interface, popular ways of tying up industry- academia linkage through the efforts of Educational Institutions and through the efforts of companies and Globalisation of business scenario has created knowledge economy. In order to face current and future global challenges in business and industry, a country needs strong knowledge foundation.

Industries don't just need educated manpower but they need smart, practical, skilled workforce that can survive and compete in the complicated global market. This paper has covered the importance, objectives of academia and industry collaboration, challenges facing India in Academia and industry collaboration compared to other developed countries of the world. It highlights the best practices that India needs to implement in order to achieve its advancement and also underlines current practices that are already being implemented. This paper argues that there is a great need for Industry-Academia partnership.

Keywords: Academia – industry, interface, globalisation, collaboration.

1 INTRODUCTION

The collaboration or partnership of industry-academia brings together to improve the quality of education in terms of Excellence, modernization, collaboration and self-reliance are the four crucial elements in the development of Higher and Technical Education.

Therefore, there are the major factors behind the emergence of collaborative practice of industries and academics. When companies and universities work in tandem to push the frontiers of knowledge, they become a powerful engine for innovation and economic growth.

Constant progress/change in the way business operations is conducted globally and its relative effect on industrial environment locally has put demands on the development of knowledge economy. Two important pillars of knowledge economy are Academia and Industry where Academia plays the role to nurture fresh and energetic talent and new concepts/ideas. Industry has the role to monetize/commercialize new concepts utilizing skills of fresh new talent. Economic growth of a nation can be boosted with appropriate and effective co-ordination between Academia and Industry. Young population of a nation is of paramount importance in this scenario. Availability of young population, their education, their vocational skill levels, the environment provided for them to become industrious (education, opportunities to sharpen/enhance/utilize their skills and knowledge, employment opportunities, etc.) provides major support to a nation's growth. Academia must be responsible enough to strive for continuous feedback from the industry and vice versa Industry must clearly communicate their requirements and expectations to the Academia. Need of the hour is for both these pillars to work with a larger vision of nation's growth in a global scenario and close the gap amongst themselves interactively and collaboratively. In India about 66% of the workforce has equivalent to the eighth-grade education. Only approximately one in fifty workers have any kind of formal vocational training. In Indian economy, high skill, high productivity sector that produces goods and services for rich, tech- savvy, urban consumers and low cost, low productivity sector that is for poor.

1.1 Objectives of the Study

1. To understand the concept of Academia – Industry Collaborations.

2. To identify challenges in the collaborations of academia and industry in India.

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3. To identify the best practices to use in collaboration of academia and industry of

India.

4. To evaluate the performance of India with other countries.

5. We study the organisations doing the best practices in the field of industry and academia collaborations

1.2 Best Practices in Academia- Industry Linkages

Some of the best practices of industry-university collaboration are given below-

 Industry-academia joint innovation. Eg- IIT Madras research park.

 Policy support by the government will to incentivize and encourage stakeholders. Eg- Atal Innovation Mission.

 Healthy communication among industry-university-government will help in keeping innovations as per need and relevant for future.

 Internship-to give real time expertise.

 Scholarship will make people interested to pursue.

 Bring nice parity between education and employment.

 Industries can sponsor talented students & researchers by way of scholarships.

 Industries can also collaborate with the Universities for research in specific stream.

 Industries like Tata Group have collaborated with many Indian & European &

American Institutes to enhance their research capability.

 Technology Giants like Google, Facebook, IBM, etc hire their employees directly from universities based on a few tests where the innovative talent of the candidates is showcased.

 Universities too have collaborated with group of companies to conduct research in their respective product lines.

2 INDIA WILL BE BENEFITED IN FOLLOWING WAYS-

 Promote skill development, entrepreneurship and create employment and reduce socio-economic inequality.

 Lowering imports.

 Increasing commercialization will lead to greater output and which ultimately result in economic prosperity and sustainability.

 More IPR rights of India.

 It will speed up economic inclusion.

 Foster Make in India, Skill India Mission, Start-up India-stand up India.

2.1 Challenges in Academia-

Academia must get their priorities right. In chronological order, they are expected to work on following:

 Basic education: 100% improvement in quality and many times increase in spread is required.

 Advanced/Higher education: Must be competitive with global standards and must include inputs from Industry.

 Fundamental R & D: Encourage more participation from students and teachers.

 Industry specific R & D: Target impact areas like new age management, fin-tech, energy, communication, health, food, etc with active participation from industry.

3 CHALLENGES FOR INDUSTRY:

1. Get skilled, trained and motivated manpower

2. Reduce costs (infrastructure, manpower, manufacturing, product development, R&D) 3. Improve quality on continuous basis.

4. Continued education for its workforce (technical, behavioural, managerial) 5. Get globally competitive.

6. Bad experience from earlier academia partnership.

7. Confidentiality of product/service structure and technology while interacting with Academia.

8. Curriculum of Academia is mismatch with industry requirement.

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3.1 Traditional structure of Academia – Industry interface is as follows:

1. Industrial visit 2. Field visit

3. Guest lectures by Industrial experts.

4. Seminars, Workshops for students with collaboration of a relevant industry.

Apart from the above traditional academia- industry interface now there is a need to move further, to think at elaborative vision and more involvement of industries in academia. Such as:

 Involvement of industry in the framing of syllabus, curriculum of courses followed by joint certification and resulting in at least

 An internship opportunity.

 Faculty development program by industries to teachers and professors with at least a part of it being conducted at actual shop floor.

 Involvement of students in the industries complex projects, sharing of ideas.

 Industry Financer role in providing funds to students in start-ups and working as venture capital provider and guidance.

 Encouraging students for research and supporting them by fellowships of industry.

 Marketing: Communicate academia's strength to the industry.

 Core Strength: Build critical mass of experts.

 Infrastructure: Provide adequate technical and other infrastructure for R&D to thrive.

 Administration: Reduce/Remove restrictive administrative policies that may discourage academicians to interact with industry.

 Provide incubation for Start-ups 4 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

This is descriptive research. In order to study the academia- industry interface of India, survey method was followed. The study is based on secondary data. The data was collected from books, journals, newspapers, and websites. The data collected were analysed and made conclusions. Existing literature available on industry academia interface is reviewed to analyse the role & significance of industry institute interaction in enhancement of academic delivery. The research also provides the measures to improve the industry institute interaction for mutual benefit & social benefit. We study the organisations doing the best practices in the field of industry and academia collaborations like Ashoka University has been contributing towards the development of an AI ecosystem through collaborations with IT companies, publications of cutting-edge research studies and several policy briefs on the topic. Enhancing the quality of education and helping build quality manpower for IT industries, Board of IT Education Standards (BITES), in association with Karnataka technical education institutions, has bridged the industry-academia gap through innovative skill development programmes in IT. It is said that collaboration between academia and industry is increasingly a critical component of efficient national innovation systems.

5 LITERATURE REVIEW & DISCUSSION

India has witnessed massive initiatives in the last few decades both in public and private sector to employ IT platforms for enabling and enhancing the effectiveness and efficiency of student learning. The National Program on Technology Enhanced Learning (NPTEL), a project funded by the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD), was first conceived in 1999. The main objective of NPTEL program is to enhance the quality of engineering education in the country by developing curriculum-based video and web courses. This is being carried out by seven IITs and IISc Bangalore as a collaborative project. In the first phase of the project, supplementary content for 129 web courses in engineering/science and humanities have been developed. Each course contains materials that can be covered in depth in 40 or more lecture hours. In addition, 110 courses have been developed in video format, with each course comprising approximately 40 or more one- hour lectures. In the next phase other premier institutions are also likely to participate in content creation. Also, there are several initiatives in the private sector to develop content and offer modular courses employing IT tools, at the school as well as the college levels.

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We have developed vision and mission statements for Board of IT Education Standards (BITES) through a workshop involving the participation of industry professionals and academic experts constituting our stakeholders. We aim to serve as a catalyst for nurturing excellence in our IT educational institutions, ensuring employability of our graduates, promoting quality of work of our faculty, strengthening interactions and networking among stakeholders, and enhancing global competitiveness of our IT industry.

We have also obtained ISO 9000-2008 certification in order to streamline our activities.

Nine Key Activity Areas:

 Advice on policy

 Competitions and awards

 Curriculum development

 Databases

 Faculty development

 Industry-institute interaction

 Institutional development

 IT education standards and

 Leadership development 6 CONCLUSION

Robust industry-university collaboration will have multifold impact on reducing unemployment, social upliftment and nation’s progress by ushering skill development, innovation and entrepreneurship. As other authors have stated, there are a large number of benefits to the establishment of an academic and industry partnership. Industry-academia partnerships are instrumental in advancing research and creating a skilled workforce.

Higher Education contributions to the country’s development are well recognized. It is a powerful tool for social, political and economic change. Its significance as source of new knowledge and competent manpower for all sectors of economy cannot be over emphasized.

Over the last five decades there has been phenomenal expansion of the higher education system. Yet in the fast-changing socio-economic context, the higher education system will be exposed to still greater pressures for expansion. It may be because of demands for social equity and justice, for providing a training ground for skilled manpower to meet the needs of expanding industry, trade and commerce or for self-employment.

REFERENCES

1. Brainard, J. 2005, Federal Funds for Academic Research Rose Sharply in 2003 While Industry Support Continued to Decline, The Chronicle of Higher Education, July 21 2005.

2. Cerf, V., Miller, H. 2005, America Gasps for Breath in the R&D Marathon, Wall Street Journal, July 27 2005, Page A12.

3. Davey, M. 2005, Federal Research and Development Funding: FY2006, CRS Report for Congress.

4. Deutch, J., Perry, W., Research Worth Fighting For, The New York Times, Editorials/Op-Ed, April 13 2005, A19.

5. FactSet Mergerstat Free Reports: M&A Activity U.S. and U.S. Cross-Border Transactions, www.mergerstat.com/new/free_reports_m_and_a_activity.asp

6. Harrison, J.V., Enhancing Software Development Project Courses Via Industry Participation, Proceedings of the 10th Conference on Software Engineering Education and Training, 1997, 192-204.

7. Kornecki, A.J., Hirmanpour, I. Towhidnejad, M., Strengthening Software Engineering Education through Academic Industry Collaboration, Proceeding of the 10th Conference on Software Engineering Education and Training, 1997, 204-209.

8. Kornecki, A. J. Khajenoori, S., Gluch, D., and Karneli, N., On a partnership between Software Industry and Academia, Proceedings of 16th Conference on Software Engineering Education and Training, 2003, 60-69.

9. Mullins, G. 2001, Mergers and Acquisitions: Boon or Bane? Central Wisconsin Economic Research Bureau:

Special Report, 2^nd Quarter.