SID to develop incubation park

Bangalore: The Society of Innovation and Development (SID), the business arm of the Indian Institute of Science (www.iisc.ernet.in), will soon be setting up an incubation park to encourage the institute faculty and past and present students to set up ventures. "We are waiting for the funds from the Union ministry of information and technology for the purpose," says SID chief executive S Mohan. "We have applied for a grant of Rs 3 crore."

The proposed 10-acre incubation park will initially house five units. "We will be focusing on a selected two or three industrial segments out of 10," says Mohan. Some of the sectors that are under SID’s consideration are biotechnology, web-design, hardware, IT software, materials design, drug design and micro-electro-mechanical systems.

SID’s move will elevate the industry-institute interaction to a meaningful level. At present research activity in most universities and institutes has no relationship with the expectations of the industry. Many of the research projects fail to reach pilot-plant levels, as commercialisation of the same is not a viable option.

Narrating a couple of instances where corporates view institutes’ and universities’ research projects, which do not result in instant profits, with disdain, Vikram Jayaram, associate professor in IISc’s metallurgy department, says: "Institutes can go only up to a certain stage. Beyond that it is for the industry to show seriousness in scaling up a research project to pilot plant-stage and later commercialise the same if found viable."

Welcoming the setting up of the incubation park, he says: "Such a move will help the institute to transfer lab-scale project to the pilot-level and validate the commercialisation prospects. But the people employed here must be the same cross-section as you get in a start-up — qualified people with experience in technology development and finance — not just professors and students."

To the question as to the competency of professors to profitably run a business, putting in the seed capital and the means of acquiring the same, Mohan says: "The institute’s management studies department conducts seminars, conferences and short term workshops, where the faculty can participate and acquire expertise."

"Success actually depends on the proportion of intellectual input and the actual hardware development. In my work, the latter is crucial and professors do not usually have the time or patience or ability. And it would not be cost-effective for them to spend their talents in this. But they can definitely play an advisory role," says Jayaram.

He says the secret of success lies in paying competitive salaries while drawing capital from outside. "Institutes like IISc can make space and the faculty time available and perhaps make available their own capital equipment at a reduced cost. But special equipment, salaries, and consumables should come from outside," he says.

IISc is one of the institutes interacting with various industries actively. One can see Monsanto, Cadila and others locating their research departments inside IISc’s campus. These R&D outfits draw IISc’s faculty expertise, research scholars and students for a fee. "Such centres have to function for a minimum period of five years," says Mohan.

"We earn around Rs 8 crore per year by facilitating research projects for corporates," says Mohan. SID packages the human and material resources of IISc in an industry-friendly as well as faculty-friendly way. SID accepts projects with deliverables defined as well as projects that are object-oriented.

There are around 100 ongoing projects of varied sizes. According to Mohan SID charges for each project a fixed percentage for overheads after taking into account the professional charges of faculty and research scholars.