I am forced to pose this question “Is Indian academia up to the industry standard or not?” after reading a report on the coverage of BIOCON CMD Kiran Mazumdar Shaw’s address in the two day EmTech 2010 India Conference in Bangalore recently. In that address Kiran shared her anxiety that India academia has not reached to that standard where Industry could think of partnering with them. She has commented further Indian institutions are yet to reach international standards. Her other areas of observations included affordable innovation and collaboration between government, academia and industry.

Given my kind of background, I felt Industry Academia Interaction could lead to many potential benefits mainly to industries. I tried to capture these thoughts in the form of the following response.

Why Industries come to Academia?

Traditionally industries come to academia for one or more of the following reasons - Recruit new employees, Enhance technical and managerial skills through training, Collaborations and faculty consulting and Access technical and domain expertise through research. In the process they monitor emerging and cutting edge technologies, discover ways to strengthen existing businesses, identify new management practices and gain superior insight. Industries look forward to strengthen strategic decision making through development of new products and processes, implement innovative management practices and achieve effective growth strategies. Virtually, industries expect academia to be their perfect partners in their chosen businesses.

Types of benefits industries/companies receive

Through their interaction with academia industries discover new technologies to strengthen existing businesses, validate key investment decisions and develop new products. Many a time they also solve their short term technical problems. They also get to know with whom they can partner with. They also work towards creating industry bench marks or standards to keep potential competitors at bay.

Some of the services and deliverables are:

Academic based case study or survey research concerning strategic issues within industry, and the dissemination of results. Preparing and placing industry ready students by exposing them to industry specific education and internship with sponsoring companies.

Other specific services and deliverables are:

- On campus sessions with faculty, students and research scholars

- Faculty and student visits to company production facilities

- Executive search and research

- Workshops, Conferences and Symposia

- Publications in journals, conferences

Some best practices for working with academia

Industry Academia Interaction can be greatly facilitated by following some best practices like – making perfect connections at respective industries and academia, identifying clearly beforehand areas for interaction and not leaving anything to ambiguity, making research directly related to industry problems and market requirements and making the executives and faculty visit each other’s facilities at regular intervals and interacting with all the stake holders.

Some unscrupulous practices which can mar the relationship

Some unscrupulous practices which can mar the relationship between the industries and academia are – Non payment of agrees fees and charges after receiving services and products, Non delivery of agreed services and products after collecting fees and charges beforehand, Sharing vital information and research findings with the competitors, Not reaching out or responding to when problems occur and Producing and delivering generic and below quality reports and findings.

Some questions to industries and academia

- Do you have the ability to meet and deliver the needs and meet your contractual obligations?

- Do you have research focus and faculty in the areas identified?

- Do you have the knowledge fit with the industry needs?

- Are you willing to share your pain points and problem areas?

A note of caution for Academia

- Know your intentions and expectations

- Be clear as to how and who can use the results

- Focus on relationship and hence every interaction is important

- Deliver on time, in full and within agreed cost

- Don’t be afraid to reach out beyond your area of expertise

- Establish context, content, coverage and communicate

Well. The kind, intent, intensity and extent of industry academia interaction we come across in well developed countries is lacking in India. I totally agree. The blame has to be borne equally by the industries and academia and blaming entirely Indian academia for not coming up to the industry standard is not fair on the part of Kiran Mazumdar Shaw.

I would not venture to question her on the extent of her commitment, involvement and participation both financially and intellectually to promote and facilitate such industry academia interaction in India. Blaming is one part of the story – that is easier said than done. Involving and promoting the cause is the most difficult part. We need to act on this.

I would only pray and wish our environment to undergo radical changes to facilitate the kind of high quality industry academia interaction Kiran Mazumdar Shaw dreams and expects in India.

Please join me.