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India is on the  path of becoming 5 trillion-dollar economy by 2024 for which eco system needs to be created where Incubation and Innovation is organically interlinked and enable people to move on the journey of creating a new world.

To reach the mark of 5 trillion-dollar, India needs to evolve systems and mechanisms to convert the present demographic dividend into high quality technical human resource capable of doing cutting edge research and innovation and deep-tech entrepreneurship.

In  order to achieve the  cultural and attitudinal shift and to ensure that ‘Innovation and Startup’ culture is the primary fulcrum of our higher education system a policy framework and guidelines are the need of this hour. I am pleased to the share the following extract about the New Policy:

“The ‘National Student and Faculty Startup policy 2019’ is a guiding framework to envision an educational system oriented towards startups and entrepreneurship opportunities for student and faculty members. The guidelines provide ways to Indian HEIs for developing entrepreneurial agenda, managing Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) ownership, technology licensing and equity sharing in Startups or enterprises established by faculty members and students.

These guidelines will enable institutions to actively support their faculty, staff and students to participate in innovation and entrepreneurship (I&E) related activities, thus encouraging students and faculty to consider startups and entrepreneurship as a career option. These recommendations and guiding principles will also help HEIs in creating their own policy framework, if required. Moreover, these guidelines will facilitate Ministry of Human Resource Development in bringing uniformity across HEIs in terms of IPR ownership management, technology licensing and institutional startups policy,  thus enabling creation of a robust innovation and Startup ecosystem across all HEIs. These guidelines will also help emphasize that the entrepreneurship is all about creating a business, which is financially successful.

Strategies and Governance

a.   Entrepreneurship promotion and development should be one of the major dimensions of the HEIs strategy. To facilitate development of an entrepreneurial ecosystem in the organization, specific objectives and associated performance indicators should be defined for assessment.

b.    Implementation of entrepreneurial vision at the  institute should be achieved through mission statements rather than stringent control system. The  entrepreneurial agenda should be the responsibility of a senior person at the level of dean/ director/ equivalent position to bring in required commitment and must be well understood by the higher authorities. However, one must understand that promoting entrepreneurship requires a different type of mindset as compared to other academic activities. Therefore, this person should be very carefully chosen from someone who understands the industry and above all business.

c.        Resource mobilisation plan should be worked out at the institute for supporting pre-incubation, incubation infrastructure and facilities. A sustainable financial strategy should be defined in order to reduce the organizational constraints to work on the entrepreneurial agenda.

i.    Investment in the  entrepreneurial activities should be a part of the  institutional financial strategy. Minimum 1% fund of the total annual budget of the institution should be allocated for funding and supporting innovation and startups related activities through creation of separate ‘Innovation fund’.

ii.   The strategy should also involve raising funds from diverse sources to reduce dependency on the public funding. Bringing in external funding through government (state and central) suchas DST, DBT, MHRD, AICTE, TDB, TIFAC, DSIR,  CSIR, BIRAC, NSTEDB, NRDC, Startup India, Invest India, MeitY,  MSDE, MSME, etc.  and non-government sources should be encouraged.

iii.  To support technology incubators, academic institutes may approach private and corporate sectors to generate funds, under Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) as per Section 135 of the Company Act 2013.

iv.   Institute may also raise funding through sponsorships and donations. Institute should actively engage alumni network for promoting Innovation & Entrepreneurship (I&E).

d.    For  expediting the  decision making, hierarchical barriers should be minimized and individual autonomy and ownership of initiatives should be promoted.

e.    Importance of innovation and entrepreneurial agenda should be known across the institute and should be promoted and highlighted at institutional programs such  as conferences, convocations, workshops, etc.

f.    Student and faculty startup Policy and action plan should be formulated at university level, which is in line with the current document along with well-defined short-term and long-term goals. Micro action plan should also be developed by the affiliated institutes to accomplish the policy objectives.

g.    Institute should develop and implement I & E strategy and policy for the entire institute in order to integrate the entrepreneurial activities across various centers, departments, faculty members, within the institute, thus breaking the silos.

h.    Product to market strategy for startups should be developed by the institute on case to case basis. i.                   Development of entrepreneurship culture should not be limited within the boundaries of the

institution.

i.                 HEIs should be the driving force in developing entrepreneurship culture in its vicinity (regional, social and community level). This shall include giving opportunity for regional startups, provision to extend facilities for outsiders and active involvement of the institute in defining strategic direction for local development.

ii.   Strategic international partnerships should be developed using bilateral and multilateral channels with international innovation clusters and other relevant organizations. Moreover, international exchange programs, internships, engaging the international faculties in teaching and research should also be promoted.”

Each HEI  must ensure that this policy is successfully implemented to enable India to achieve new heights in the world.

I am pleased to invite you for XXI Annual International Conference on the broad theme, “Achieving Excellence in Higher Education” and Seminar Session on “Quality of Higher Education: Challenges and Opportunities” scheduled to be held  from Jan. 4 to 5, 2020 at Deen  Dayal Upadhayay College, University of Delhi, Dwarka, New Delhi, India.

I present to you the current issue of DBR and request you to share your feedback to enable us to further improve the quality of DBR.

Rtn. Prof. Ajay Kumar Singh

Editor-in-Chief