An IIC Calendar Driven Activity “A Session on National Innovation & Start-up Policy in Higher Education Institutions” was conducted in association with the Central Research Facility and Santosh Startups Forum at National SANCON.
The objective of conducting this session was to familiarise the HEIs (higher educational Institutions) with NISP policy and sensitize their role of in promoting innovation and Entrepreneurship among the student and faculty.
1. The session was chaired by Dr. Tripta Bhagat (Vice chancellor, President at IIC), Conducted by Indu Rani (Incubation manager) and attended by Dr. Jyoti Batra (Dean Research, Vice-President at IIC), Dr. Neeti Mittal (Coordinator), Dr. Sanjeev Tomar (Coordinator) and other HoDs & faculties.
2. In recent years, startups have been receiving increased attention in many parts of the world. In India, the number of startups has increased fast and more support has become available in all dimensions. As we know that the total number of recognised startups in India rose from 471 in 2016 to 72,993 as on 30th June 2022, spread across 55 sectors and 635 districts and is considered as the 3rd largest startup ecosystem in the world. In addition to it, India has been given the acronym of being the World’s Fastest Growing Startup Ecosystem with a total of 82 unicorns. However there is still a huge gap and lack of desired impact when even when the Government of India has introduced policies that aim to ease the business environment, framework in which startups operate.
3. On this Ms Indu Rani shed lights on how this challenge is mitigated by the UGC and AICTE’s initiatives of bringing in the culture of entrepreneurship within the University Campuses, by the launch of the AICTE Startup Policy 2016. This was a document for all AICTE approved institutions, to address the need of inculcation of innovation and entrepreneurship culture in Higher Education Institutions (HEIs). Then based on the success of the Startup Action Plan - wherein Universities have established 500+ Incubators, 2500+ Entrepreneurship Cells across India, MOE Innovation Cell in association with UGC and AICTE have launched a guiding framework to envision an educational system that’s oriented towards startups and entrepreneurship opportunities for students and faculties. It was the National Student and Faculty Startup Policy 2019. This framework also helped in bringing uniformity across HEIs in terms of Intellectual Property Ownership Management, Technology Licensing and Transfer, Commercialization of Research as well. The seeds were sown by UGC with AICTE and grown with the support of DST, DBT, NSTEDB (STEP/TBI), Atal Innovation Mission - NITI Aayog, State Government & Private National / International Organizations. The ecosystem is further supported by key Enablers & Stakeholders like Entrepreneurship Development Institute (EDI), Wadhwani Foundation, Headstart Network Foundation, Deshpande Foundation, Confederation of Indian Industries (CII) and many more.
4. She, further added that, HEIs have encouraged to the establish “Incubation” and “Pre-Incubation Centres” within the University, along with a dedicated “Entrepreneurship Cell”. This laid the foundation for students, academic researchers and faculty members to orient themselves entrepreneurially, creating a culture that is entrepreneurship centric. Every year 25000+ students are trained in the concepts of entrepreneurship and 100+ are given Seed IIC Calendar Driven Activity A session on NSIP: Role of Higher Educational Institutions in Promoting Innovation and Entrepreneurship Santosh Deemed to be University, Ghaziabad .Funding of 1 Lakh each to start their Startup. The policy framework was successful in creating the necessary Institutional infrastructure for Students and Faculty - IICs as per the guidelines by MHRD Innovation Cell, EDC, IEDC, New Gen IEDC, Startup Cell, Student Clubs, etc, Pre-Incubations and Incubation/Acceleration by mobilizing resources internally and externally.
5. Audience was familiarized with best practices related to Intellectual Property Ownership Management, Technology Licensing and Transfer and Commercialization of Research which are followed in Higher Education Institutes, like IIT-B, IIM-A, IIM-B. Some of the best Incubation Centers like BITS Pilani NSR-CEL, Villgro, CIIE, IIT-M Incubation, T-Hub IIIT-Hyderabad, are hosted by Universities and Academic Institutions.
The activity helped the students and faculty to under the importance of promoting innovation and entrepreneurship at higher educational institution level and to lay the foundation for students, academic researchers and faculty members to orient themselves entrepreneurially, creating a culture that is entrepreneurship centric.
