Former ISB dean Ajit Rangnekar to head Research and Innovation Circle of Hyderabad

Over 30 top academic & research institutes will be part of RICH to collaborate on research & innovation in start-up spirit

In a first of its kind initiative in India, more than 30 top academic and research institutes in Hyderabad coming on board of an institutional platform to collaborate in development and quick commercialisation of the industry relevant innovations in multiple fields ranging from defence to life sciences.

The motto of the soon to be established Research and Innovation Circle of Hyderabad (RICH) is about ending the old ways of people and institutions working in silos to maxise the research potential and provide a clear path for a promising idea or a research work to graduate into a commercial proposition in close association with industry.

The state government has spearheaded the initiative in a bid to tap the potential of a large ecosystem of academic and research institutes that exists in Hyderabad.

A separate Research to Market Fund (RMF) backed by private venture capitalists and the state government is also being set up exclusively for the RICH to fund the research and innovation projects that are going to be promoted or incubated by the platform, similar to start-up funding by PEs and other investors.

To be headed by former dean of Indian School of Business (ISB), Ajit Rangnekar, as the Director General, the RICH will have a secretariat formed with professionals drawn from outside to run the day to day affairs of the body. It will have a governing council being formed with member institutions. All the industry bodies, including Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and Nasscom will have their presence in the council to help forge a closer working relationship between institutions and the industry on research and innovation.

Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO)'s top laboratories, International Crop Research Institute for Semi-Arid and Tropics (ICRISAT), Indian Institute of Chemical Technology (IICT), National Institute of Nutrition (NIN), Indian School of Business (ISB), International Institute of Information Technology (Triple IT) are some of institutions that would be part of thios grand programme.

"Institutions will share the current research among themselves while the match-making between the institutions for collaboration on a specific research project will be done by the secretariat. The new platform aims to fill all the existing gaps that come in the way of taking research to its logical end and it would also bring industry relevance to research," Jayesh Ranjan, Principal Secretary, Department of IT and Communications of Telangana government, told Business Standard. The government is a founder and participant of the new initiative.

ITC Chairperson Y C Deveshwar termed the concept of RICH as a potential game changer, when he spoke at the launch of Telangana industrial policy in early 2015 as the idea was found its mention in the policy document.

The new platform will focus exclusively on industrial activity in five thrust areas namely Life Sciences, Food Processing and Agri-business, Clean Technologies, Hitech (IT hardware, electronics and communication) and Precision Engineering with focus on defence and avionics.

According to Jayesh Ranjan, RICH is being established with a Rs 26 crore corpus to run the organisation partly supported by the government while the Research to Market Fund will have Rs 100 crore at its disposal over a period of time. The state government has committed Rs 50 crore to the fund while the rest of the funding will come from venture capital funds and other investors.