Building Innovation Ecosystem in Educational Institutes : Daily Current Affairs

Relevance: GS-3: Awareness in the fields of IT, Space, Computers, robotics, nanotechnology, biotechnology and issues relating to intellectual property rights.

Key phrases: Innovation, ARIIS, MoE, MHRD, NITI Aayog, University, Industry, GII, Startup,

Why in News?

Minister of State for Education Subhas Sarkar said that National Innovation week will inspire people to work collaboratively to realize the dream of activating India 2.0, fueled with the spirit of Atma Nirbhar Bharat. He was addressing the valedictory session of E- Symposium on ‘Building Innovation Ecosystem in Educational Institutes’ on Wednesday.

Status of India in Innovation:

India has one of the largest higher education systems and the third largest start-up ecosystem in the world.
Recently, India ranked 46th in the latest Global Innovation Report. It has climbed two spots over the previous year’s ranking. The performance is labeled ‘above expectations’ in the level of development category.
India performs better in innovation outputs than innovation inputs in 2021.
This year India ranks 57th in innovation inputs, the same as last year as but higher than 2019.
As for innovation outputs, India ranks 45th. This position is the same as last year as but higher than 2019.
India ranks 2nd among the 34 lower middle-income group economies.
India ranks 1st among the 10 economies in Central and Southern Asia.

Why Innovation Ecosystem in Educational Institutes is important?

Building a new and Aatmanirbhar Bharat: This could be achieved by supportive ecosystem and dedication and efforts of our innovators and entrepreneurs in educational institutes.
Strive to be a knowledge-based economy: this is not possible without innovative sprit and entrepreneurship within our educational institutions.
Educational institutions in India to shift their mind-set and create environment that supports high-quality research, innovation, and entrepreneurship leading to commercialization and technology transfer.
Universities and public research institutions play an important role in innovation systems, where economic benefits are less certain and rather protracted. Universities are typically centres of innovation, talent development and knowledge capital creation.
Boost economy: For 5 trillion-dollar economy by 2025, we should encourage our educational institutes to focus on building innovation eco-system within their campuses.

Government Initiatives for building innovation ecosystem in Educational Institutes

Atal Ranking of Institutions on Innovation Achievements (ARIIA) is an initiative of Ministry of Education (MoE), Govt. of India to systematically rank all major higher educational institutions in India on indicators related to Innovation, Start-up and Entrepreneurship Development” amongst students and faculties. ARIIA critically evaluate institutions on parameters like patent filing and granted, number of registered students and faculty start-ups, fund generation by incubated start-ups, specialised infrastructure created by institutions to promote innovation and entrepreneurship, etc.
Ministry of Human Resource Development has launched an initiative ‘YUKTI 2.0’ to help systematically assimilate technologies having commercial potential and information related to incubated startups in higher education institutions.
Institutions of Eminence (IoE) Scheme is a government's scheme to provide the regulatory architecture for setting up or upgrading of 20 Institutions (10 from public sector and 10 from the private sector) as world-class teaching and research institutions.
Atal Innovation Mission, the government has established Atal Tinkering Laboratories (ATLs) in schools across the country. The objective of this scheme is to foster curiosity, creativity and imagination in young minds; and inculcate skills such as design mindset, computational thinking, adaptive learning, physical computing.

What is needed for Building Innovation Ecosystem in Educational Institutes?

Attract Public R&D (Investment) In Indian Universities: Public investments in Indian Universities is key to building Indian innovation capabilities and competitiveness. Universities should proactively position themselves to attract more public R&D for investments for building their capacity in R&D, knowledge capital generation, spin offs and skill development.
Build World-Class Research Institutions & Universities: Quality higher education and training remains highly important in India to continue to build capabilities for moving up the economic activity value chain. India must build world class Universities to help achieve this objective. A focus on STEM (Science, Technology, Mathematics and Engineering) is crucial. Ex. Institutions of Eminence (IoE) Scheme
Produce, Train & Engage Highly Skilled Innovation Talent, Researchers (R&D) and (Technology) Entrepreneurs: Higher education and training is crucial for economies that want to move beyond basic productivity gains, higher up the value chain into specialized services, creative markets and markets of the future. Global economies today compete on quality and skills of their top talent and leaders. India needs to create incentives, resource support and institutional infrastructure to train and engage world-class leaders, scientists, engineers and PhDs to engage in the local market. Ex. YUKTI 2.0
Indian Universities, business and government should ensure that the PhDs and researchers are engaged in projects that are well funded and well integrated with addressing the global and national social and economic challenges rapidly through the use of innovation. Top Indian universities should also be the main source of technology entrepreneurs.
Drive University-Industry Collaboration: Most top innovation economies have good collaboration between industry and top notch universities on R&D. University and Industry collaborations through incubators and technology transfer offices will greatly assist the effort of joint knowledge capital creation, skill building and commercial spin-offs.
India needs to define national level priorities and targets for knowledge capital generation in science and technology, fund these topics and incentivize the generation of quality knowledge assets that meet or exceed global standards.

Way forward:

It will be the mandate of these institutions to produce good employers in large numbers that will cater to the aspirations of the next generation India. Our institutions will have to imbibe the spirit of entrepreneurial thinking, which includes rapid adaptation to the societal needs, developing and scaling in resource constrained environments and serving as local points or nodes of innovation and entrepreneurship, to reach our national goal of a $5 trillion economy.

Source: News On Air

Mains Question:

Q. In the growing world of technology, enumerate what does India need for Building Innovation Ecosystem in Educational Institutes? Where India should focus to build an effective innovation ecosystem? Critically examine.