UGC releases draft guidelines on sustainable and vibrant university-industry linkage

CHENNAI: The University Grants Commission (UGC) has released draft guidelines on sustainable and vibrant university-industry linkage for the institutions.

The commission said the main objective is to promote Research and Development (R and D) Thrust through University-Industry (UI) collaborations in the University to address practical R-and D problems of high societal relevance by engaging the faculty and students.

The guidelines said the move will also create training opportunities and apprenticeship opportunities in the industries, labs, research organizations and other organizations including social systems across the country.

Accordingly, the clusters of Universities and Industries should be created at state level and each cluster may be led by an institute of Central and State government in the region.

The cluster may be entrusted with the responsibility of addressing the technological needs of the region in association with the Department of Industries of state governments.

Every educational institute or university should create an Industry Relations Cell (IRC) for collaborations and every Industry including the MSME's could create a University Relations Cell (URC) for enabling the envisaged collaboration.

Similarly, the universities could appoint the highly experienced industry professionals on appropriate governance bodies as per requirement of regulatory bodies on board of studies, academic councils, and on other committees of the institution.

The guidelines further said that the iIndustries should also establish industry chairs in universities and support scholarship schemes to attract meritorious young researchers to university.

The industries and universities may jointly offer a collaborative degree programmes tailored for industry personnel or with emphasis on practice for generic aspirants.