As a follow up to my previous post on Dearth of Researchers, one way to make Research more attractive, goal-based, productive and incentivised for students is to bring in ambitious, real-world problems and tackle them with joint collaboration of Industry and Academia. In this article, albiet slighly longer than my usual posts, I touch upon the need for such efforts to spring-up now more than ever in Indian academic scene which has grown fertile enough with raw talent to plough the seeds.

The relationship between academia and industry is not just one of donor-recipient, but is of interactive, collaborative, participative character with respect for each others role, contributions and the ability each bring to the table for the betterment of science and technology.

At any given point, there are more than 150 companies working with IISc researchers. But among them most of those can be categorised as projects, hardly any would qualify as big, ambitious goals. Senior professors say there’s foundation for this at the Institute but that needs to be scaled up. India cannot build massive institutions like China or the US, so IISc must rise up to the challenge and forge big collaborations with the industry to bring India to the forefront of the advanced and bleeding edge research and development. (Look what the Stanfords and CMUs did with Google car)
Universities in India are now “hungrier” to work with industry than they have been in the past. There is need to set up "Centers of Relevance and Excellence" in the areas of relevance to industry in the University and the industry should likewise acknowledge the existence of this University relations centres as one of their arms to advance their market competitiveness.

Industries could gain by using the academia's knowledge base to improve the industry‘s cost, quality and global competitive dimensions, reducing dependence on foreign know-how and expenditure on internal R & D. Industries also get benefited by updating and upgrading the knowledge base of the industry's professionals through management development programmes designed by the academia.

Academia benefit by having the satisfaction of seeing its knowledge and expertise being used for socially useful and productive purposes, widening and deepening of the curricula and the perspectives of teachers and researchers and thereby improving their morale as well as that of students, secure training and final placements more easily for their students based on the respect earned from, and the relationship established with industry. Academia also gets benefit of improved financial sustainability and security. The faculty's exposure to industry leading to Improved curricula and widened and deepened teaching perspectives resulting in professional graduates of improved caliber emerging from the academia to man industry. Students stand to gain by way of hands-ontraining, reduction of curve in industrial practices; and, society stands to gain by way of improved quality of goods and services

This interaction will promote innovation and new technology development while ensuring healthy competitive growth and ensure a steady pipeline for industry to recruit specific talent. The principle reasons for which industry can leverage University
1.   Universities always have the "headcount" in the form of students eager to learn,
2.   Universities have the "cycles" to spend for training and learning,
3.   Universities don't always see $$ per hours spent but rather they measure knowledge gained,
4.   Universities don't complain about bad products (ideal test bed),
5.   Did I mention tax benefits for all industry contributions to Universities

Being in the industry I know of a fact that many of the product companies in software and hardware engage their clients in their alpha, beta and RC phases for assessment and feedback. This includes supplying eval hardware and software versions under a "Non-disclosure agreement".
If this partnership were extended to the relevant departments and labs of University, there could be a lot gained mutually from the interaction. Focussing on hardware (as I mostly look at Computer Architecture and HPC), typically for lack of funds or otherwise Universities tend to be 3-5 years slower in their refresh cycles for hardware. This leads to slightly outdated studies. The fastest cluster in IISc still runs Nehalem (released in 2008), the latest Intel MIC is Knights Ferry (2010), the latest Nvidia GPGPU was bought in 2010. However, the industry is now moving to releasing Haswell on servers (from HP and Dell) while in the MIC (Intel Xeon Phi) space Knights landing is the latest product and the Nvidia CUDA ecosystem has leaped several leaps ahead.

Specifics aside, speaking generally from the industry perspective insensitivity and/or lack of awareness of the resource potential of the academia, easy availability of foriegn know-how, obsession with expensive, high profile professional consultants and fear of losing the competitive edge, while from the academia perspective apathy towards applied research and extension and reluctance to leave the comfort zone of pure teaching, inadequate marketing of its strengths to industry and lack of a critical mass of experts and specialised technical infrastructure have kept these interactions from blossoming.

Therefore a change of perspective and shedding of traditional thinking is needed in academia and industry environments in India so ambitious problem statements can be exchanged and solved with the guidance of industry and the enthusiasm of Universities to work harmoniously for the betterment of the country.

P.S: Also read Times of India and "The Hindu" reports..