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Academic
institutions in several other nations, including India (the IITs
and IISc, in particular) have also created internal mechanisms to
protect and license IPR to the industry, to promote
entrepreneurship and for-profit ventures — both in an effort to
enhance their innovation systems and to generate revenues. The
experience of US and European universities, therefore, may be of
relevance in establishing the right direction for future
academia-industry interactions.
Academia and the Markets
On the face of it,
the marketplace realities of competition and profit-motive run
counter to the values of academia. Historically, the university
has been a place for learning, research, and service to society
through the application of knowledge; the spirit of free enquiry
and exchange of ideas its raison d'etre. The academia was accorded
a significant degree of protection from the pressures of society —
academic freedom — precisely because it was serving the broader
good of society. However, it is true as well that a significant
portion of academic research — which has largely been publicly
funded till today — often appears unrelated to the needs of the
society at large. This perhaps is more pertinent to a country like
India, because of larger government contribution to academic
research funding.
With the rise of a
global market economy, higher education is beginning to be seen as
a ‘private good’ benefiting those who study or do research. As
this view has it, the users should pay for this service as for any
other. In short, the provision of knowledge is just another
commercial transaction. In the marketplace, capital has no
loyalty. Can or should the same rule apply to academic capital as
well? This is the key question that the modern-day academia faces
and needs to resolve.
The question of industry-academia linkages, however, resists clear
demarcation of boundaries. No doubt, the academic process of peer
review and open publication of research papers is critical to the
progress of knowledge. Still, a simultaneous link with the market
can provide the academia with valuable inputs: Does the concept
work? Will a device sell? The idea born in the academia is almost
always only an incipient one and needs the support of a whole
range of business systems — that are beyond the academia — for
realizing its economic value. Genuine industrial innovation needs
both science and the logic of marketplace. In short, the need
between the industry and the academia is mutual.
The general decline
in the role of the government in most economies may leave the
academia with little choice in the future but to increasingly seek
private research funds as well as trade its IPR. To many, this may
seem a pragmatic response to the emerging realities. Yet, what
place would the arts and humanities (and perhaps even some of the
social sciences) have in a regime overwhelmingly governed by
economic utilitarianism? How much damage will this cause to the
credo of liberal education that, historically speaking, the arts,
humanities and science together help found? The answers to these
questions are not easy. The modern academia perhaps needs to
re-define its role and create structures that may help retain what
has been its essential ideal: fostering a larger social good.
Contact: Prof Sandip Roy,
sr@che.iitb.ac.in
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