Scientific research and commercial activity are often considered to be as different as chalk and cheese. But developed countries have shown the gains of coming up with new ideas and technology and translating these into successful commercial ventures. The emergence of, say, nanosciences as an academic discipline in the West was closely followed by the growth of industries related to these fields.In India, however, the linkages between research institutes and industry remain patchy. “On the one hand, scientists are typically focused on core science and may not want to work with startups and industry at large. Moreover, commercialisation of their research is not among their important goals,” says Anand Nandkumar, associate professor, Indian School of Business (ISB) in Hyderabad.
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“Startups, on the other hand, feel that scientists do not exactly understand needs of industry and the demand of their customers.”But that might change as the government is taking measures to ensure the two sectors can complement each other.The Department of Science & Technology (DST) plans to set up 15 centres with high-end science and technology infrastructure.These hubs — Sophisticated Analytical & Technical Help Institutes or SATHIs — will help not just scientists and students but also aid startups and industries carry out research and development (R&D) activities.DST Secretary Ashutosh Sharma tells ET Magazine: “SATHI centres will be equipped with sophisticated instruments and smart manufacturing facilities that are generally not available at universities, R&D institutions or industry. They will provide professionally managed services with an open access policy and high transparency.”

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Product DevelopmentThe DST, which plans to establish these centres in five years, will allow a company to hire instruments or the facility itself for a “nominal fee”. R&D staff at these centres will help the company research a product to facilitate faster and easier commercialisation. There will be facilities for fabrication work, rapid prototyping, material testing and new device fabrication, among others. “SATHI means a companion. It will not only offer physical infrastructure but also trained manpower to help users make the most of the facilities,” says Sharma. “Using these machines and tools, a startup can develop a demo, prototype or produce a limited number of items to check a product’s viability or performance before they decide to produce it commercially.”SATHI centres, costing Rs 125 crore each, will be established in IIT-Delhi, IIT Kharagpur and Banaras Hindu University this financial year itself. Some of these hubs will have specialised equipment for sectors such as water, energy, agriculture as well as tools for prototyping.SATHI is just one of the three initiatives of the DST’s 100-day agenda of the new government. The second is Scientific and Useful Profound Research Advancement (SUPRA) and the third is National Mission on Interdisciplinary Cyber-Physical Systems (NM-ICPS).

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SUPRA seeks to encourage breakthrough research that can have a global impact. “There are three ways to do something. First is jugaad: something that is temporary and not scalable. The second is dhanda: a stable way of doing business offering a reasonably modest growth of, say, 5%. The third is disruption or panga: a game changer. Our education system does not encourage us to take panga or disruption. That is why SUPRA will promote big, disruptive ideas which will also involve risk. We want our researchers to undertake this risk because if they are successful, it will lead to something big. We want them to go for a profound idea over incremental ones with limited benefits,” says Sharma.To be headed by Praveen Kumar Somasundaram of the Science and Engineering Research Board, SUPRA has been designed for high-quality proposals that have a new hypothesis or challenge existing ones. Funding will be provided for three years, which could be extended by two years. “It is envisaged that innovative SUPRA proposals will bring out breakthrough solutions in identified areas. The success of such proposals will ideally open up new opportunities in science and technology and have an impact globally,” adds Sharma.The third, NM-ICPS, plans to connect academics, industry, ministries and state governments for research and commercialisation of projects in artificial intelligence, internet of things, big data analytics, robotics, quantum computing and cyber security, among others. This will benefit national initiatives in health, education, energy, environment, agriculture, security as well as industry.“It is estimated that this will create about 40,000 jobs in the short term and about 2,00,000 in the long term,” says KR Murali Mohan, mission director of NMICPS.“The job opportunities will be enhanced by generating skilled manpower.”As part of this scheme, 15 technology innovation hubs, six application innovation hubs and four technology translation research parks will be set up, says Mohan.

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Apart from these three initiatives of the DST, the office of the principal scientific advisor plans to set up City Knowledge and Innovation Clusters in Pune, Bengaluru and Delhi as part of the 100-day agenda. These will provide a bridge between research at institutions and industries in the states “to make them more effective in what they are doing without compromising their agenda,” says K VijayRaghavan, the principal scientific advisor of the government of India.“The gap between what economy needs and what startups provide has to be filled. Better synergy between industry and scientific institutes is our goal.”However, not all the steps taken by the DST can be called unique. Facilities to link industry and academia exist at some research labs and top institutes. This has made people like CNR Rao, former director of Indian Institute of Science, question the purpose of these initiatives. “Many of the institutions have always provided assistance and shared instrumental facilities with industries. For use of sophisticated instruments, there is generally some fee to be paid. The Government of India (DST) had established regional Sophisticated Analytical Instrument Facilities (SAIFs) for use of various institutions. These are generally located in IITs, national laboratories, etc. Given this background, I do not know the scope of the new research facilities,” says Rao, also the honorary president and Linus Pauling Research Professor, Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research in Bengaluru.There are 18 SAIF centres across the country with sophisticated analytical instruments that scientists, academicians and industry can access to carry out R&D for a nominal charges.But SATHI will be different from these facilities, says B R Mehta, dean of research & development at IIT-Delhi. Greater emphasis will be put on reaching out to industry. “The ratio of usage is reversed from 20:80 (20 for outsiders or industry at existing facilities) to 80:20 at SATHI. The new centres will provide R&D infrastructure with ease and transparency for a modest fee. Each industry can’t have its own scientific setup. No matter where you are in the country, you can look at the facilities available at the nearest centre and book a slot,” adds Mehta, also the coordinator for IIT-Delhi SATHI centre.

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Industry FocusThe chairman-designate of the upcoming SATHI centre at IIT-Kharagpur, Rabibrata Mukherjee, says the new hubs will also have better infrastructure. “The existing facilities do not have some of the instruments that SATHI plans to provide. For example, the high temperature structural health monitoring system, which is extremely useful to assess the condition of aircraft engine components, is not available anywhere in the country. It will be available at IIT-Kharagpur’s SATHI centre,” says Mukherjee, a professor in the department of chemical engineering.“We will also be hand-holding startups and industry to encourage science and tech-based entrepreneurship.”“After all,” adds Mehta, “all companies cannot have their own scientific setups.”These facilities will help pharma, automobile, chemical, electrical and electronics sectors, which carry out more than 70% of industrial R&D, and also new-age sectors such as nanotechnology, quantum technology and AI. In developed countries, 70-80% of investments in R&D are accounted for by its private sector, HRD Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal said in Parliament recently. In developing countries, however, the government accounts for 70% of R&D investment, he added. In India, government’s R&D spend has been around 0.7% of gross domestic product for two decades, says the Economic Survey. The need to shore up R&D, particularly from private entities, couldn’t be clearer.But merely setting up institutions alone will not help, says Nandkumar of ISB. “While the concept of DST is laudable, merely focusing on the scientific infrastructure might not be sufficient. To think that the academia and industry will just come together through these institutions without the mutual alignment of incentives is a bit far-fetched. An ecosystem has to developed that is incentive compatible for all the parties involved for collaboration to happen and also lead to blockbuster successes.”