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At the CII Global Summit on Industry-Academia Partnership on Friday, industry leaders stressed that India must narrow the gap between research and real-world needs to keep pace. CII identified both a problem and an opportunity. Speaking to ANI on the sidelines of the summit, Rohit Bansal, Group Head, Corporate Communications, Reliance Industries Ltd, said the divide between industry and academia had become too wide and needed urgent attention.
He explained that while companies were pushing technology forward at a much faster speed, academic institutions were not keeping up. "CII has identified that industry and academia are too far apart. They identified both a problem and an opportunity," he said, adding that firms working closely with educational institutes were beginning to see strong results. "We are trying to incentivise those who are performing well by presenting them with an award," he said. Earlier in the day at the same event, Hindustan Unilever's Head of R&D, Aniket Gandhi, told ANI that India must strengthen coordination among government, industry and academia to turn research intent into meaningful innovation. Describing the partnership model as a "golden triangle," he said MoUs require significant groundwork and that the real focus should be on converting dialogue into lasting collaboration. Aniket Gandhi flagged three barriers: limited stakeholder interaction, weak human infrastructure and gaps in co-funding models. Clear business cases, he noted, are essential for projects to take shape. He called for incentives to boost private R&D investment, including a more transparent tax structure, a supportive Global Capability Centre policy, and a stronger ecosystem of academia, startups, industry, and government, backed by a robust IP framework. Minister of State for Science and Technology Jitendra Singh said that India's private sector is set to play a significantly larger role in the country's space and nuclear industries, a shift that was unimaginable a decade ago. Speaking at the same event, Singh said India had transformed from being counted among the "fragile five" emerging economies to becoming "first among four," building confidence in its scientific and industrial capabilities. He said the opening of the space sector to private players marked a major policy change. "Nobody could have imagined this ten years back," Singh said, adding that India's private companies were now emerging as partners in strategic areas such as space and defence. He noted that even in the nuclear sector, traditionally dominated by the state, non-government entities were beginning to find a role. "Government support cannot happen without the support of non-government entities," he said. "Nowhere in the world does the government finance private industry the way it is happening in India. We are acting as a catalyst, giving a push to the private sector to scale up." Singh called for stronger collaboration among research institutions, academia and startups, arguing that such synergy was essential for innovation-led growth. He also highlighted India's expanding genetic data bank, calling it "unique" and unmatched globally, and said it could become a valuable resource for industry and scientific research. (ANI)
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