The government will establish five new research parks at IIT Delhi, IIT Kanpur, IIT Hyderabad, IIT Guwahati and and Indian Institute of Science Bangalore. These research parks will come at a cost of Rs 75 crore each, entailing a total cost of Rs 375 crore. At present, there are research parks at four IITs – Chennai, Gandhinagar, Bombay and Kharagpur. HRD ministry will fund the existing research parks at IIT Bombay and Kharagpur with Rs 100 crore each.
The research park at IIT Gandhinagar at a total cost of Rs 90 crore is funded by the Department of Science & Technology. IIT Chennai was the first among IITs to establish a research park in 2010. It currently has 43 R&D clients, 4 incubators, 55 startups and 5 centres of excellence.
Research parks will assist companies with a research focus to set up a base in the park and leverage the expertise available at IITs. They help develop the knowledge and innovation ecosystem and also help industry to create, integrate and apply advancements in knowledge.
IIT Bombay's research park, ASPIRE focusses on four sectors – IT and telecom, energy, chemical and semiconductor and heavy engineering. Globally, institutions such as Harvard, Stanford and MIT have a very vibrant research culture. This is reflected in the number of startups that get incubated at these institutes. HRD ministry, through these research parks wants to replicate a similar culture at IITs.
Recently, HRD minister Prakash Javadekar had said that the ministry will constitute a committee to review progress made by other IITs on research parks.
HRD Ministry has also launched a Smart Campus campaign under which educational institutions will be encouraged to optimise use of water, electricity and also adopt measures for generating power through solar installations. The institutions which perform on the parameters of saving, conserving and recycling would be identified and honoured.