PREPARING INSTITUTIONS FOR SUCCESSFUL INTERACTIONS WITH INDUSTRY

Akepati S. Reddy
School of Environmental Science & Technology
Thapar Institute of Engineering and Technology
Patiala (PUNJAB) – 147 004

Abstract: Academic institutions are financially in bad shape. Flow of funds from the Government is drying out.
Their survival is feared to depend on their ability to earn the resources they require. Earning revenue through
exploiting their underutilized knowledge base and infrastructure for providing services to the industry is
considered here as an important future survival strategy. Resources presently available with the institution are
considered as not having the desired quality, and institutions may not be in position to successfully implement this
strategy. This paper tries first to critically analyze the problems and prospects associated with interactions
between the industry and institution, and then proposes three management programs, whose development,
implementation and maintenance are supposed to enable the institutions to successfully adopt the strategy and
earn the revenues required. The programs are 1) program for the utilization and maintenance of infrastructure; 2)
program for the development, maintenance and improvement of institution’s knowledge base; and 3) program for
managing industry-institution interactions. What these programs are supposed to do is also discussed at length.

INTRODUCTION coordination centers (PCCs) to cater to the placement

Economic liberalization and the consequent intense
global competition, are forcing Indian industry to pay
greater attention to technology, skills and
management. Assuring quality and protection of
environment and worker health and safety are drawing
increasing attention. The days of dependence on a few
professionals for managing the production processes
are rapidly becoming the past. Teamwork and total
participation, customer satisfaction, and continuous
improvement are becoming increasingly important.
Constraints, in the form of limitations of technological
capabilities and resources, are feared to become
important bottlenecks in equipping Indian industry to
the newer challenges.
Academic institutions are financially in bad shape.
Flow of funds from the government is drying out and
survival is increasingly dependent on their ability to
earn the resources they require. Having realistic fees
structure can be neither a total solution nor an
appropriate solution to the problem. Institutions may
have to follow the strategy of helping the industry, in
equipping it to face the new challenges, for
overcoming their own financial problems.
Institutions have already started adopting the above
said strategy. Many have established placement and
needs of their own graduates. A few of them have
started providing technical services to industry.
However, at present institutions in general are not in a
position to adopt the strategy mentioned earlier. They
are lagging behind in clearly understanding the current
and potential future needs of the industry. Many are in
fact not in a position to cater even to the current needs
of industry. Topping this, industry has limited
confidence on the knowledge base and infrastructure
available with the institutions.
Realization of the dream of becoming self-reliant
through the strategy of helping the industry, may
require institutions to have structured programs for the
development and maintenance of the knowledge base
and infrastructure, for earning credibility and
confidence of the industry, and for structured,
meaningful and mutually beneficial interactions with
industry. This paper is concerned with the following
two aspects:
• Analyzing the problems and prospects associated
with industry-institution interactions
• Proposing structured programs for enabling the
institutions to properly develop and maintain their
knowledge base and infrastructure and to
implement the strategy of earning revenue through
helping the industry

PROBLEMS AND PROSPECTS OF INDUSTRY-
INSTITUTE INTERACTIONS
Providing Technical Services to Industry
Engineering and technological institutions are rich
in the following two resources:
1. Knowledge base in the form of faculty and
students
2. Very diverse types of infrastructure facilities
created and maintained for the academic purpose
These resources in most of the institutions are
underutilized. There is ample scope for utilizing them
and earning revenue. Potential uses to which these
resources can be put may include:
• Providing testing, analysis, consultancy and
counseling services
• Carrying out sponsored research and developing
newer technologies
• Assessing training requirements of industry and
catering to them through extension education
programs
• Evaluation and engineering analysis of
technologies (many technologies may require
evaluation and analysis prior to commercial scale
implementation)
Effective and efficient use of these resources can in
fact work towards achieving the institution’s main
objective ‘providing quality and relevant technical
education’.
At present institutions are using their resources
only to a negligible extent in this direction. Further,
many institutions are in fact not in a position to
effectively and efficiently use their resource base.
Important reasons for these are:
1. Industry is not having confidence on the technical
capabilities and infrastructure of institutions to
timely deliver right quality goods.
2. Institutions are not making sincere efforts to
properly develop and maintain their resources, and
to ensure that they are capable and sufficient to
cater to the contemporary needs of industry.
3. Institutions are showing neither interest nor
inclination to market their resources, and industry
is mostly unaware of what institutions can deliver
and how they can be helpful to it.
Loss of credibility of institutions has been
occurring mainly because of the following reasons:
1. Indiscriminate acceptance of technical service jobs
without assessing sufficiency of internal
capabilities and infrastructure for their timely and
successful completion
2. Assigning the accepted jobs to the faculty not
strictly on the basis of their knowledge,
competence and technical capabilities (jobs are
frequently accepted not as jobs of the institution
but as jobs of the individual faculty members
3. Failing to successfully complete the accepted jobs
as per the agreed upon quality and time schedules
One major problem with the infrastructure of
educational institutions is most of it is usually non-
functional. Reasons for this are:
1. Underutilization (utilization may be once in a year
for demonstrating to students or for their
experimentation, or utilization only till the project,
under which the equipment is procured, is
completed) and improper handling of the
infrastructure (by students and unskilled staff)
2. Not having the culture of preventive maintenance
(including scheduled verification) of the
infrastructure
Teaching faculty, which represents the knowledge
base of institutions, is usually not having enough
competence and technical capabilities required
specially to help the industry in solving its problems.
Reasons for this may include:
1. Teaching as a profession is relatively less favoured
by competent scientists and engineers.
2. Limited practical exposure of the faculty to the
technologies and know-how (their knowledge is
mostly, if not exclusively, bookish and many of
them might not have seen the technologies in
working)
3. Not having specialized and in-depth knowledge of
the technologies and know-how (not having the
inclination and interest to develop and maintain
up-to-date knowledge; overloading the faculty
with non-academic and administrative work;
forcing teachers to change their specialization very
frequently, etc., may be responsible to this)
Marketing of the institution’s resource base may
require doing at least the following:
1. Self-assessment of the potential of institution’s
resource base
2. having good understanding about how the
institution can help the industry
3. Effective communication to industry as to what
the institution can deliver and how it can help the
industry
Carrying out self-assessments and understanding
potential of the resource base may also help the
institution for planning a program for the development
and maintenance of its resource base. Many premier
institutions have been trying to communicate with
industry, but, rarely such communications are based
on the outcome of any serious self-assessment study or
of any understanding of the potential of the resource
base.
Project Works and Training Programs of Students
As a partial requirement of the degree programs,
students take up graduate/ undergraduate research
projects (project works, dissertations or thesis works),
undergo training programs, and attend educational
camps and field trips. These project works and training
programs give opportunity to students to put the
theory, they have mastered through classroom learning
to practice. Students thus obtain on the job training
and exposure to real life problems.
But, this is not usually the case with the industry,
which entertains student for his project work and
training. In most of the cases, industry, instead of
being benefited, is burdened. Probably because of this,
industry rarely shows interest in these programs of
students. As far as possible, they avoid entertaining the
students. In the absence of industrial access, students
are forced to chose to work within the premises of
their institutions. At the maximum, a few fortunate
students may get an opportunity to work in sponsored
research projects and consultancy works, if any are
there with the institution. Very frequently projects are
worked on just for the sake of fulfilling the
requirements and completing the formalities, rather
than meeting the core objective. As a consequence,
students are deprived of the much needed on the job
training and exposure to real life problems.
Occasionally, project reports and theses resulting from
such project works are not worth even the paper being
used in publishing them.
For meeting the objectives of the project works and
training programs of students a triple win situation, i.e.
win-win-win for the student, the institution and the
industry, rather than the single win situation, i.e. win
situation for the student alone. At the same time none
of the three should be allowed to have a free meal.
Industry should financially compensate the institution
for the benefits it gets from the student’s assignments.
Institutions should in turn utilize part of the finances
thus received to pay stipend to the student. When an
industry is financing a project or training, it will ensure
that it will extract the maximum possible from both the
institution and the student. This can make the project
work and training program serious rather than just a
formality to be completed.
There are a few serious impediments in creating the
triple win situation. Important among them are
• Industry not having confidence in institutions’
competence, specially when it comes to delivering
goods as a consulting and R&D organization
• Lack of relevance, importance and quality in the
projects and training programs assigned to the
students (these in the process of training the
students should benefit the industry)
• Students usually do not have the required
knowledge, skills and competence to take up and
successfully complete relevant and quality project
works useful to the industry. They may require
well coordinated inputs from the faculty of the
institution and relevant personnel of the industry
who together have the required knowledge, skills
and competence
These impediments can not be removed overnight.
Institutions should in fact develop, implement and
maintain programs and procedures for systematically
removing them.
Having a triple win situation can also help the
faculty to understand the current knowledge and skills
available with the industry, and training requirements
of the industry and to anticipate the requirements of
the future and accordingly to review and revise the
academic programs (including the curricula) of
institutions.
Placement and Sponsorships
Placement of graduating students: Engineering
and technological institutions usually have PCCs for
facilitating placement/ employment of their graduating
students. These centers liaise with the prospective
employers and arrange campus interviews for students.
 Success of a placement and coordination center
(PCC) is usually measured in terms of its ability to
procure employment to the graduating students of the
institution and average annual gross emoluments
offered to the recruits by the employers. Success of a
PCC mostly depends on the quality and
appropriateness/ relevance of the education and
training provided by the institution to its students, and
on the level of performance of the old students of the
institution and also on the level of satisfaction of
employers with the performance of the recruits.
Continued success of a PCC may depend on the
review and revision of the institution’s education and
training programs and their content. PCCs can
facilitate the much needed review and revision of the
education and training programs through feedback
from both the employers and the recruited graduates of
the institutions.
Vanishing Government funds and industrial
sponsorships as alternative: Flow of government
funds or public money to higher education is rapidly
drying out. Consequences of this will be:
1. Higher education will become very costly and un-
affordable to the poor and middle class people.
Since competition for higher education will be
only from a small fraction of the total population
(the rich minority), quality of students seeking
admission may rapidly deteriorate and employers
may find it difficult to have competent and
capable graduates for recruiting
2. Institutions will find it difficult to develop and
maintain competent and quality technical
capabilities and infrastructure facilities and even
to survive unless they succeed in tapping
alternative financial resources
PCCs can play an important role in counteracting
the above consequences. They can work towards
improving accessibility of the poor to higher education
through procuring sponsorships from the prospective
employers. These employers can be encouraged to
sponsor education and training of more and more
students admitted for higher education, and to recruit
people and sponsor them for higher education. PCCs
can also work towards procuring sponsorships from
the industry and prospective employers for the
development and maintenance of required
infrastructure facilities and technical capabilities. They
can be encouraged to sponsor creation and
maintenance of R&D laboratories and other key
infrastructure facilities, and running of selected
education and training programs of the institutions.
Institutions, in return, may have to
• Reserve some seats for the students sponsored by
the sponsor
• Run tailor made education and training programs
meant for producing human resources specially
required by the sponsor
• Shoulder partly the responsibility of training the
employees of the sponsor
These days, industry/ employer expects institutions
to produce quality human resource that, in addition to
having academic prowess and good technical skills,
has great ability to deal with people effectively. That
is, they expect that the graduates produced should have
social and inter-personal skills. Hence, a successful
PCC may also have to ensure that the graduating
students have the required social and inter-personal
skills.
PCCs are at present not sufficiently geared up to
obtain feedback from the employers and from the
alumni. No serious attempts are apparently made by
these centers for arranging the sponsorships talked
about earlier. Concept of providing social and inter-
personal skills has started picking up and institutions
are yet to gear up to this requirement.
MANAGEMENT PROGRAMS
Objectives and Strategies of the Management
Programs
Institutions, for realizing the dream of becoming
self-reliant through providing services to industry, may
probably require development and implementation of
structured programs. Objectives of such programs can
include:
1. To earn revenue from the efficient and effective
use of the institution’s resource base for providing
services to industry
2. To develop and maintain the resource base in order
to ensure that it continues to remain adequate,
effective and suitable
3. To create a triple win situation for the
students/faculty, industry and institution with
 respect to the project works of students and
deputation programs of the faculty
The following can be the strategies for achieving
the above objectives:
• Developing and implementing procedures and
criteria for accepting the technical service jobs
from industry; for assigning responsibility for their
successful completion; for allocating necessary
resources; and for internal monitoring and
evaluation of progress of the on-going projects
• Developing and implementing an institution level
program for the proper use and maintenance of the
infrastructure facilities
• Remunerating the faculty through sharing the
revenues earned from technical services to
industry; attracting competent scientists and
engineers to teaching profession, and ensuring
dedication and involvement of the faculty in the
activities of the institution
• Encouraging each faculty member to become
specialized in one or two selected areas (through
carrier advancement in the area of specialization;
through sponsoring for advanced courses and
training programs/ workshops in the area of
specialization; through deputing to industry at
regular intervals for sufficient duration (for
obtaining practical knowledge on the technologies
in which the faculty member is specialized); and
through giving due importance to the
specialization while assigning academic and non-
academic works to the faculty members.
• Assessing potential of the resource base of the
institution and communicating with industry in
order to make it aware of what the institution can
deliver and how it can be helpful to industry
• Pooling the knowledge, skills and competence
available with the faculty members of the
institution and with the engineers, scientists and
managers of the industry for formulating relevant
and quality project works and training programs,
which are useful to the industry, and for ensuring
their successful implementation and completion
• Developing and implementing a mechanism for
charging and collecting fee from industry for the
services provided to it
• Obtaining sponsorship for improving access of the
poor majority to the education and training
programs offered, for creating and maintaining the
required infrastructure and technical capabilities;
and for running the education and training
programs
• Periodic review and revision of the education and
training programs to continually improve their
quality, and to preserve their appropriateness and
effectiveness (The following may be considered as
inputs in such ‘review and revise’ exercise:
feedback from the employers and the institution’s
alumni; present and future requirements of the
industry; recent advancements in science and
technology; and requirements and views of the
sponsors. Social and interpersonal skills content of
the programs may gradually increase in future.
Implementation of the education and training
programs requires development and maintenance
of the institution’s resource base, in order to ensure
that it continues to be adequate, effective and
suitable).
Program for the Utilization and Maintenance of
Infrastructure
Objective of this program is to enable the institution
to create and maintain sufficient and suitable
infrastructure and to ensure that it is available for
effective use in running the academic programs and in
providing technical services to industry. This program
is supposed to include necessary procedures and
support mechanisms for enabling the institution to
perform the following functions:
• For the periodic assessment of availability of
sufficient and suitable infrastructure with the
institution
• For prioritizing the equipment, machinery and
other infrastructure, which is identified as
required, and for procuring and commissioning it
• For controlled, efficient and effective utilization of
the infrastructure and for avoiding its mishandling
• For making necessary arrangements for the use of
the equipment and machinery which is not under
permanent control of the institution
• For in-service checking, calibration and preventive
maintenance of the equipment, machinery and
other infrastructure
• For the maintenance of the equipment and
machinery which is out of order and not
functioning satisfactorily
• For decommissioning and disposing of the old and
obsolete facilities of the institution
Assessment for the availability of sufficient and
suitable infrastructure may have to result in:
• Identification of need for the creation of new and
additional infrastructure, for the replacement of
older facilities with new facilities, and for the
decommissioning and disposal of obsolete
facilities
• Assessment of potential of the institution’s
infrastructure and its current level of exploitation,
and knowing the scope for its utilization in the
R&D projects, consultancy works and testing and
analysis jobs for industry
• Comprehensive description of the range of
infrastructure facilities available in the institution
for running its academic programs and providing
services to industry
Procedures and support mechanisms required for
some of the functions mentioned above are briefly
described below:
Each equipment and machinery of the institution
should have an instructions/ operator’s manual and a
documented procedure for its utilization or operation.
Only authorized users, who are trained and having
necessary knowledge, skills and competence, should
be allowed to operate the equipment. If students are to
use them, they should be allowed to do so only after
necessary training and demonstration, that too under
the supervision of the authorized users. Many
equipment and machinery fail and become non-
functional mainly because of their in-frequent use and
non-operation. To avoid this the equipment and
machinery should be operated (even in the absence of
any utilization need) periodically as per the
manufacturer’s instructions. Access to the equipment
and machinery should be regulated and responsibility
for conditioning operation should be fixed. Each piece
of equipment and machinery should have a user log-
book.
Requirements for in-service checks or verifications,
calibration and or maintenance of all the equipment
and machinery and other infrastructure should be
identified, and the activities pertaining to in-service
checks, calibration and maintenance should be
scheduled. Responsibility for performing these
activities should be defined. Personnel responsible for
these activities should be sufficiently trained, and they
should be made available with necessary documented
procedures and with the manufacturer’s operation &
maintenance manuals. Further, information about the
manufacturers, suppliers and service providers should
also be maintained. Wherever required, spares,
replacement parts, reference standards, etc., should be
maintained. Executed in-service checks, and
calibration and maintenance works should be
sufficiently documented. A mechanism for supervising
and monitoring the in-service checks, calibrations and
maintenance jobs should also be in place.
There should be documented procedures for
identifying, isolating and repairing an equipment or
machinery, which is out of order or not functioning
satisfactorily. Such procedures should also take care of
testing of the repaired equipment or machinery for its
satisfactory performance prior to reuse. Corrective
maintenance (and also calibration and preventive
maintenance) of some of the equipment and machinery
may require external inputs. Such external inputs
should be identified, necessary information about them
should be maintained, sufficient networking with them
should be established, and, as and when required, they
should be sourced. Responsibilities for the corrective
maintenance should be sufficiently defined and the
persons responsible should be ensured to have
necessary knowledge, competence and sufficient
training.
For facilitating development, implementation and
maintenance of the program, institution should define
suitable organizational structure and should make
available of necessary resources. Further, roles,
responsibilities and authorities of relevant staff at
different levels should be sufficiently defined. Proper
documentation of the procedures and mechanisms, and
record keeping can make the program and the
infrastructure amenable for monitoring and auditing,
and this in turn can facilitate continuous improvement
of the program and maintenance of the infrastructure
sufficient and suitable both for the running of the
academic programs and for providing services to
industry.
Program for the Development, Maintenance and
Improvement of Institution’s Knowledge Base
This program is supposed to enable the institution
to achieve the following objectives:
1. Attracting competent scientists and engineers/
technologists to join the faculty
2. Ensuring availability of specialized and in depth
knowledge, skills and competence with the faculty
3. Minimizing turnover rate of the faculty
Assumptions behind this program are:
1. Making teaching profession more remunerative,
very specialized and challenging, may attract
competent people to join the faculty and minimize
its turn over rate
2. Each faculty member becoming specialized in one
or at the maximum two desired areas of
specialization can lead to the improvement of
knowledge, skills and competence of the faculty
3. Giving due importance to the faculty member’s
specialization while assigning teaching and other
academic and non-academic works is also
important for ensuring that the faculty member is
knowledgeable, skilled and competent in his area
of specialization
The program proposed here essentially concentrates
on the following functions of the institution:
• Assessment of the faculty requirement
• Recruitment of the faculty
• Training or retraining and development of
knowledge base of the faculty
• Assignment of work to the faculty
Assessment of the faculty requirement: This can
be based on the academic programs offered by each
department and school of the institution. It can assume
that each of the faculty members has one main
specialization and one to three auxiliary
specializations. Further, specialization of a faculty
member is wide enough at the minimum to cover
contents of one paper and at the maximum two papers
offered under any of the academic programs of the
institution. Institution can ensure that the
specialization is not duplicated and that, as far as
possible, duplication of even the auxiliary
specializations is avoided. The assessment exercise
can include:
• Preparation of a document of main specializations
and auxiliary specializations of the existing faculty
• Comparing specializations of the faculty with the
papers offered under different academic programs
(excluding Ph.D. and higher level programs) and
taking the following decisions:
• Need for faculty retraining and
development
• Need for the recruitment of additional
faculty (number, main specializations and
auxiliary specializations may be specified
here)
Recruitment of faculty: The program is supposed
to enable the institution to recruit faculty members
who are knowledgeable, skilled and competent in the
desired areas of specialization. For ensuring this,
advertisement for the recruitment, in addition to other
things, may have to include the following things:
1. Required main specialization and desired auxiliary
specializations for each of the faculty position
2. Institution’s policy relating to remuneration (in
addition to the usual salary) for compensating the
faculty member’s contribution to its sponsored
projects, consultancy & counseling jobs, and
testing & analysis jobs
As far as possible, only specialists should be
recruited. Main and auxiliary specializations of each of
the recruited faculty member should be defined and
documented at the time of recruitment after consulting
the incumbent.
Training/ retraining and development of the
faculty’s knowledge base: This is essential because of
the following reasons:
1. Science and technology is rapidly advancing and
necessitating every faculty member to continually
up-date his knowledge, skills and competence in
the area/areas of his specialization
2. Frequent review and revision of academic
programs and their content is necessitating faculty
members to acquire knowledge, skills and
competence in the new and emerging areas of
specialization
3. Newly recruited faculty members may not always
have the desired level of knowledge, skills and
competence in the desired areas of specialization.
This is necessitating their training to acquire the
desired level of proficiency
The program proposed here is supposed to equip the
institution with the procedures and support
mechanisms which will ensure training/retraining and
development of the faculty’s knowledge base, through
adopting the following strategies (most of which have
already been mentioned earlier under ‘objectives and
strategies of the program’ section):
• Encouraging carrier advancement of the faculty
specially in the area of their main specialization
• Sponsoring the faculty members for advanced
courses, training programs & workshops,
conferences and seminars in the areas of their
specialization
• Deputing the faculty members to industry at
regular intervals (may be once in every 2 or 3
years) for sufficient duration (may be for > 6
months), for understanding ‘how technologies
actually work in the field?’, for helping the
industry in solving some of their problems and for
obtaining first-hand information on the current and
anticipated future technological and human
resource requirements of the industry
• Encouraging participation in sponsored research,
consultancy & counseling jobs, and testing &
analysis jobs of the institution, if they belong to
the faculty member’s main specialization
• Forcing the faculty members to periodically (may
be once in every 2 to 3 years) prepare, a
referenced review document, highlighting recent
advances in the specialization, and the current and
anticipated future needs of the industry in their
field of specialization
Encouraging the faculty members to act as resource
persons in the advanced courses and training programs
and to organize conferences/ seminars in the areas of
their specialization can also help in the development of
the knowledge base.
Assignment of work to the faculty: The program
is supposed to encourage the institution to lay
emphasis on the following aspects, while assigning
works to the faculty members, in order to ensure that
their proficiency in the areas of their specialization
will continually increase:
• Teaching assignments may be limited exclusively
to the main and auxiliary specializations of the
faculty members
• Faculty members may be allowed to involve only
in those project works, consulting & counseling
jobs, and testing & analysis jobs, which have
relevance with their main specialization
• Faculty members may be allowed to act as
advisors/ guides/ supervisors only if the
dissertation/ thesis in question is from the area of
their main specialization
• Assignment of work outside the specialization of a
faculty member may be brought down to the
minimum possible
Program for Managing Industry-Institution
Interactions
Future PCCs may have to perform the following
functions, mainly through acting as interface between
industry and the institution:
• Facilitating placement of graduating students in
industry
• Procuring industrial sponsorship for the institution
and its students
• Facilitating conceptualization, planning and
implementation of student project works and
training programs, deputation projects of faculty
members, etc.
• Facilitating institution to provide technical services
(like consultancy, counseling, testing, analysis,
training of workers, etc.), including sponsored
research
Program for managing industry-institute
interactions is supposed to enable the institution in
performing the above functions very efficiently and
effectively. Essential elements that may have to be
included in the program for performing the above
functions are briefly discussed in the following
paragraphs.
Placement of graduating students: For enabling
the PCC to effectively and efficiently perform the
function ‘placement of graduating students’ the
proposed program is supposed to address the following
aspects:
1. Identification of prospective employers and
convincing them (may be through information
brochures and presentations) to hire the graduating
students through campus interviews
2. Preparation of the graduating students for campus
interviews (such preparation can also include
training on social and inter-personal skills)
3. Facilitating and coordinating with the prospective
employers in conducting campus interviews
4. Maintenance of database on placements and gross
salaries offered to the recruits
5. Tracking the fate of the graduates, who were not
employed through campus interviews, for some
duration (1 or 2 years)
6. Obtaining feedback and suggestions from both
employers and the employed, on the education and
training provided by the institution, and on the
 performance of the recruits and satisfaction of the
employers
7. Periodic analysis of the feedback, and preparation
of a consolidated document, which can be made
available as one of the important inputs to the
review and revision of the academic programs and
their content and for other purposes
8. Preparation and periodic revision of the
information brochures (for the prospective
employers and sponsors), which highlight the
quality of education and training offered to
students, the placement trends (including average
gross salaries offered), and feedback from the
employers
Procuring industrial sponsorship: Success of the
institution in procuring sponsorship may depend on
• Academic excellence of the institution and its
capability to perform upto the expectations and
satisfaction of the sponsors
• Efforts of the institution (to be more specific, of
the PCC) to identify the prospective sponsors and
convincing them
For ensuring continued and ever increasing support
from sponsors, the proposed management program
may have to address the following aspects:
• Periodically (once in 2 to 3 years) identifying or
reviewing and revising potential areas, and
innovative schemes for sponsorship (ideas and
suggestions can be obtained from the faculty,
industry and the alumni, and brain storming
sessions among the faculty and invited people
from industry and industrial associations can help
in identifying the potential areas and innovative
schemes)
• Identification of prospective sponsors and
convincing them for sponsorship (may require
periodic invitation of industry people and making
presentations regarding the institution’s
sponsorship schemes and anticipated benefits to
industry, specially to the sponsors)
• Development of plans and programs in
consultation with the sponsors for the effective
and efficient use of the resources sponsored, and
implementation of such plans and programs
• Maintaining records on the utilization of the
sponsored resources; extent of achievement of the
goals and objectives of the sponsorship schemes;
benefits accrued to the industry, specially to the
sponsor, etc.
• Preparation of annual report on the sponsorship
schemes and sending to the sponsors for
information
Project works of students and deputation
projects of faculty members: Objectives to be
achieved through this function are:
1. Identification of problems important to industry,
preparing appropriate project proposals and
successful completion of the projects either as
project works of students or as deputation projects
of faculty members
2. Remuneration to the institution directly and to the
students and/or faculty members indirectly for
involvement in the projects
The program proposed here is supposed to help the
institution in performing the above function through
addressing the following aspects:
• Providing necessary background information to the
industry and asking it to register its interest in
accommodating the students or faculty members
for their project works or depuration projects (the
background information supplied should be
sufficient for industry to decide the areas of
specialization in which it prefers the projects)
• Visit of the concerned faculty member(s) to the
industry for identifying the problem and preparing
the project proposal in consultation with the
industry, and for negotiating remuneration to be
paid to the institution (institution may have its own
equation/ formula for deciding the stipend/
remuneration to the student/ faculty member)
• Allocation of project works to students and
ensuring that they have received necessary
orientation to both the project work and the
industrial plant in question, prior to starting the
work in the industry (concerned faculty member
may be made responsible for this orientation, and
in case of deputation projects, the faculty member
may have to take self initiative for this orientation)
• Working for the completion of the project work
(knowledge, skills and competence available with
the concerned faculty member and with the project
coordinator from the industry side, and assistance
obtained from the student, working in the industry
under the guidance and advice of the faculty
member and the industry coordinator, are supposed
 to result in the successful completion of the
project work)
• Preparation and submission of the project report
(Concerned faculty member may be made
responsible for this. He may prepare the report in
consultation with the industry coordinator while
taking assistance from the student. The data and
information presented in the report may have to be
sufficiently sanitized)
• Student evaluation (both the concerned faculty
member and the industry coordinator may be
involved in this. The evaluation may have to stress
on the knowledge of the student in the concerned
area of specialization, student’s involvement in the
project work and skills learned, student’s
involvement in the work external to the project,
and the level of understanding obtained by the
student about the processes, operations and
technologies of the industrial plant in question)
• Maintaining records relating to the projects and
their periodic review for preparing a consolidated
report, which may be useful elsewhere, i.e.
preparation of background information to be sent
to the industry
Technical services to industry: Objective behind
providing technical services to industry is to earn
revenue through effective and efficient utilization of
institution’s knowledge base and infrastructure. The
proposed program is supposed to enable the institution
to achieve this objective. The aspects that may be
addressed by the program for this purpose may
include:
• Having a separate center (may be a technical
services center) for coordinating the technical
services provided by the institution. This center
may be made responsible for interfacing between
industry and the institution, for managing
(patenting, licensing, etc.) new technologies
developed and for coordinating the sponsored
research
• Development and implementation of procedures
for accepting technical service jobs and sponsored
research; for assigning the accepted jobs to
appropriate departments/laboratories and faculty
members; for the monitoring and evaluation of
progress; for ensuring quality and sticking to time
schedules, etc., functions of the center
• Development of policies and formulae for
charging fee to the technical services and for
remunerating the actively involved faculty and
departments/ laboratories
• Development and maintenance of information
brochures for helping the institution in enhancing
awareness of the industry about what the
institution can deliver and how it can help the
industry (potential of the knowledge base and the
infrastructure of the institution and their current
level of exploitation; and assessment of the current
and anticipated future needs of the industry may be
used as inputs in preparing these information
brochures)
• Communicating with the industry and convincing
it to utilize the services of the institution for
solving its problems (as a part of the exercise,
institutions can send information brochures, make
presentations and conduct reconnaissance visits to
industry)
CONCLUSIONS
Industry-institute interactions have been critically
analyzed here for understanding the problems that
institutions may encounter in implementing the
strategy of becoming self-reliant through helping
industry. On the basis of this analysis, generic
objectives towards which institutions should work
have been defined, and strategies for achieving the
objectives and preparing institutions for successful
interactions with industry have been identified. Three
dynamic management programs have been proposed
for implementing the strategies and achieving the
objectives. Functions that may be performed by
institutions and addressed by the proposed
management programs have also been identified and
described.
No serious attempt has however been made to
describe structure of the management programs.
Institutions can refer to ISO-14001, ISO-14004, ISO-
9001 and ISO-9004 for guidance in this regard.
Implementation and maintenance of the proposed
programs may be relatively easier for ISO-9001
certified institutions.
Implementation of the proposed programs involves
development of plans, and creation of the capabilities
and support mechanisms for implementing the plans.
Successful implementation of the proposed programs commitment from the top, total involvement and
and preparation of institutions for successful allocation of necessary resources.
interactions with industry, essentially require visible