At a recent Industry-Academia conclave at MNIT Jaipur, where I had the honor of sharing the dais with the Chief Secretary of Rajasthan, Directors of MNIT and IIT, and distinguished leaders from the industry, one question dominated the conversation: why does India, with some of the finest academic institutions in the world, still struggle to convert knowledge into economic value?
The answer is deceptively simple. Countries that lead in innovation have one thing in common — deep, sustained, structured collaboration among academia and industry. GDP growth is not just capital-driven; it is knowledge-driven. And knowledge creates economic value only when it travels from the lab to the market. In India, that distance remains stubbornly wide.
Consider the structural disconnect. Our institutes are knowledge-rich but often application-poor. Our industry is problem-rich but research-poor. Our students are degree-rich but not always industry-ready. We do not have a talent problem. We have an application problem — and recognizing this distinction is the first step toward solving it.
The most immediate opportunity is our laboratories. Across academic institutions, world-class labs are underutilized, accessible only to a handful of researchers. Every institute should publish its facility capabilities, equipment lists, and pricing, and make access easy for the Industry. Think of it as “Lab as a Service.” Laboratories should not remain academic assets locked behind institutional walls. They must become national assets, available to every entrepreneur, startup, or corporation.
The second shift must be toward interdisciplinary thinking. Innovation happens at the intersection of multiple domains. India already has an impressive proof of concept. The Stanford Biodesign program, introduced at my alma mater, IIT Delhi, in collaboration with AIIMS Delhi around 2008, created a pipeline of clinician-engineer innovators, spawned hundreds of startups, built medical technologies for the world, and shifted the institutional mindset from theory-driven education to problem-driven innovation. Today, IIT Delhi has made biology compulsory for most B.Tech disciplines. Also, bioengineering is embedded in most departments at the institute.
Third, industry must physically enter the classroom. My daughter did her master’s at SVA in New York, where the two-year “Products of Design” program had one full-time faculty member as its head, and all other faculty were practicing professionals from the industry. The result is graduates who think, build, and ship like practitioners from day one. If we want industry-ready students, we need industry inside our classrooms — not as occasional guest lecturers, but as embedded faculty who bring live problems, current tools, and professional accountability into the curriculum.
Finally, we must make industry participation in academic projects mandatory, not optional. Every final-year project should compulsorily have an industry partner. All grants must compulsorily have industry partners. Internships must focus on solving real-world problems. And most importantly, institutions must actively encourage students to build companies out of their labs and research. The best research paper is one that becomes a product. The best thesis is one that becomes a company.