New Delhi: The central government has selected six cities to be developed as City Knowledge and Innovation Clusters which aims to integrate scientific research and expertise at institutions with various industries existing within the particular city or state, according to a report in the Indian Express.
The six cities identified for the project include Bhubaneswar, Chandigarh, Jodhpur, Pune, Ahmedabad and Hyderabad.
The report also claimed that the proposal will be undertaken by the office of the Principal Scientific Advisor (PSA) and will be handled on a priority basis as it is on the agenda for the first 100 days of the NDA government’s second term.
Speaking to the Indian Express, officials from the office of the Principal Scientific Advisor said that the concept notes for the six cities were ready and consultative meetings between research institutes and industrial firms.
They also claimed that 20 national-level laboratories were already on Bhubaneswar’s roster while over 30 different business houses had participated in various meetings in Pune.
Pointing out that a large amount of knowledge and fiscal resources existing in a city or region could be better utilised, Scientific Secretary Dr Arabinda Mitra said, “If we can seamlessly connect these independent entities into a virtual platform, we will be able to optimise the resources, and various sectors will be able to work in partnership instead of in silos”.
He further pointed out that, as of now, in the event that a particular industry encounters a problem, which can be solved by scientists or facilities present at the R&D labs, there was no arrangement to facilitate access to this information and suitable technical solutions. “The idea is to bring all of this together,’’ Mitra told the Indian Express.
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He also went on to say that the city residents could directly involve themselves to solve local problems and that the financial and scientific sectors could together tackle and resolve several issues. “Problems of shortage of landfills and dumping waste, conserving and reusing water, traffic snarls — can the city come together and solve these problems? We are looking for solutions outside decisions taken by the government or the civic administration,’’ Mitra said.
Officials also added that the arrangement would not only assist industries in getting access to technology but would also help research institutions and R&D labs commercialise this technology.
To expedite collaboration for the same, the government intends to set up a web portal for a national inventory of all public funded institutions including academic and R&D institutes and scientific instruments and infrastructure. Officials claim that 350 institutes have already signed up for the web portal
To facilitate these interactions and further cooperation, each city cluster would establish a nodal office headed by a CEO, who may be a scientist, an academic or an industrialist, to be selected by the stakeholders. Additionally, government officials, like municipal commissioners, would also be a part of the city cluster. For the first three years, the nodal offices would be run and funded by the PSA, after which, the stakeholders would be expected to propose a plan to make the initiative independent of government funding.
Over time, government officials hope that the city clusters will be in a position to bid for international projects and solicit funding from international organisations like the World Bank.
After Chandigarh’s experiment with a prototype of the project called Chandigarh Region Innovation Knowledge Cluster (CRIKC), under which the city opened its laboratories to the students of Panjab University, did well, it was decided that the model would be extended to the rest of the state.