University Grants Commission (UGC) Chairman Mamidala Jagadesh Kumar believes that research works should serve the needs of the society and strongly advocated for a collaboration between industry and academia.
Kumar said that when you do the research, you cannot only leave it to the educational institutions because most of the research should have certainly societal impacts. Research works should serve the needs of the society.
Hence to judge whether the research is serving the society or not, there is need to bring in the industry closure to the academy, the UGC chairman said.
“It has been to be a closure industry-academia collaboration and the funding that goes to the universities has to be spent on problems which will bring solutions to the existing challenges we have,” said Kumar.
The innovation and scientific developments that will happen are closely linked to the kind of research that is being done in the educational institutions.
It is pertinent to mention here that the UGC had earlier released the guidelines on Sustainable and Vibrant University-Industry Linkage.
The guidelines focuses on the Atmanirbhar Bharat mission coupled with the incorporation of the values in education as emphasised by National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 to bring a fresh and healthy aura to the University system and a competitive edge through a fresh culture of effective R&D to the industry.
The objective of the guidelines is to promote Research and Development Thrust through University-Industry (UI) collaborations in the University to address practical R&D problems of high societal relevance by engaging the faculty and students right from degree (UG) college and upwards.