As the second most populous country in the world with 15 million youngsters to enter the workforce annually for the next five years, India is an increasingly important locus point of innovation. Unfortunately, the country has not been able to completely harness the potential of its young brains, as India’s general education system still drenched in Markism-marks, percentages, merit list and careers. Orienting students towards research and innovation is completely missing from the curricula. It is a high time for India’s policy makers to work hard to transform the current educational system from cram-jam-and pass the exam, to a culture of innovation and research.
Corporate companies also have a major role to play here. They need to collaborate with the hardcore academic research institutions and bring innovation to the market. That means, the industry must consider investing in the area of research and innovation for a better ROI. The long-term benefits of this will be phenomenal, as academic research is one of the most powerful methods for R&D. In return, India’s premier colleges and universities should be fully aware of what is happening in the industry, so that they can align their research machinery with it.
This maiden edition of the Higher Education Digest focuses on Research and Innovation for this very reason – to understand India’s potential to become a dominant knowledge based economy. After conducting rigorous studies on the Indian higher education sector, we have identified ‘25 Must Watch Campuses in India for Research and Innovation,’ which are continuously striving to produce latest knowledge. We hope that the future of disruptive innovation in India will be very bright and we will continue to bring you more stories of this thriving ecosystem in the coming days.
Happy Reading.
Dr. Kuldeep Nagi