Research needs to be primed for market: Gopalakrishnan

There is a need for creating a ‘translational research’ structure in academic institutions to take promising research projects and transform them into successful businesses for India to see more deep tech innovation, said S Gopalakrishnan, trustee, Infosys Science Foundation and cofounder of Infosys. “I believe there needs to be an intermediary step – a translational research setup within academic institutions for deep technology innovation to emerge,” Gopalakrishnan said.

“The part of the systemic problem is our research teams are small and the funding is minimal. So, researchers go on to publish papers and not go beyond that”.

Indian academia has for long struggled to capitalise on break through ideas emerging from university research irking students to pursue advanced research in other parts of the world where a significant chunk of research money comes from the private sector. “In order to translate that (ideas/proof of concepts) into a startup or a product, you need a structure or a translational research facility”.