Importance of Academia-Industry Linkage

Industries can take academic institutions as their sources to acquire patents and
licenses developed by academic institutions, to search for academic consultancy.
It is often debated that academia-industry linkages are advantageous for
innovation performance and for sustaining economic growth of a nation. There
should be intensive interaction between industries and academic institutions,
including universities and research institutions that bring together different expertise
from different innovators. Such linkage has been very successful in most of the
western and developed countries.
In the sian giants also this trend is getting stronger. In South sian region
India has strongly emphasi!ed on such linkages. India is a bit ahead in this race
among South sian nations. "akistan is also focusing on this issue for the creation of
synergies between Industry and the research institutions#universities.
This linkage is necessary for commercially driven work and its outputs.
cademia can lend easy access to knowledge to the industry for conduction applied
research. In turn, the technology produced by the industry can be used by the
cademia to carry out the basic research on a more detailed and extended level.
Secondly, by enhancing close interaction of research institutions, an added advantage
can be achieved that would be in the form of exploitation of their production and
outcomes.
cademic institutions differ from industries with respect to their innovation
goals and how they innovate. They focus predominantly on basic research to extend
and deepen the existing stock of basic knowledge and technologies and they are, in
general, willing to share their findings with the public by, for example, publishing
them in scientific $ournals. In contrast, the ultimate goal of profit maximi!ation forces
industries to focus more on applied % & ' to introduce innovative products into
markets, using the basic knowledge and technologies which they wither have
explored on their own or have obtained from external sources such as academic
institutions.
In general industries may obtain innovation-related knowledge and
technologies from academic institutions through engaging in the following three
types of academia-industry linkages(
). Industries can take academic institutions as their sources to acquire patents and
licenses developed by academic institutions, to search for academic consultancy.
*. They can take academic institutions as their innovation partners. In this case, they
financially support academic research or directly undertake $oint research pro$ects
with academic institutions.
+. They take academic institutions only as training bases. It means that they directly
hire students or graduates and attract researchers to $oin their research teams to enrich
their innovation capabilities.
,ost importantly, for overall development of nation, we need political stability &
firm governmental commitment and proper policies to encourage investment in % &
' by industries either in their own setting or in academia.
--- By: Dr. Panna Thapa