IITs lead in inventions in country

True to its reputation, the Indian Institutes of Technology are the real hub for scientific inventions in India with other universities including the prestigious Indian Institute of Science lagging far behind.

Published on: Oct 17, 2006, 12:23:00 IST

None | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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True to its reputation, the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) are the real hub for scientific inventions in India with other universities including the prestigious Indian Institute of Science (IIS) lagging far behind.

A study on patent activity in India by the National Institute of Science, Technology and Development Studies (NISTADS) has found that IITs account for more than 55 per cent of the total patents registered by the universities in India. Analysing data for 1990-2002, it was revealed that 80 patents of the total 171 granted to Indian universities were registered by IITs.

Second to IITs was Sree Chitra Tirunal Institute for Medical Sciences and Technology with a figure of 41 followed by IIS at 19. The figure for the remaining 18 universities or educational institutions is in single digits. However, IIT has no patent against its name in the US.

The good news for IITs is that unlike other educational institutions they have stepped up research activity since 1999 resulting in the registration of as many as 40 patents during the period. Others registered only about 29 innovations during the corresponding period.

IITs have also out-scored other institutions in the area of collaborative research though not much activity has been noticed in this sector by NISTAD. "The university industry interaction is limited but it is a still a good beginning," the study states.

The interaction with industry apparently helped IITs to conduct research in almost all the sectors, a distinction unique to the country's top technical education institutions. They have inventions in their name in basic chemicals, machine tools, electronic items and even medical equipment.

The issue of falling scientific research vis-à-vis Indian universities highlighted by eminent scientists like Professor CNR Rao, head of Scientific Advisory Council to the PM, also finds mention in the study.

The universities contribute only three per cent to the total patents registered in India whereas the pharmaceutical companies have taken a lead in Intellectual Property Rights regime, the study states.

Still, the record of Indian universities is better than the US universities. According to data with United States Patent and Trade Organisation (USPTO), the American universities' contribution to patent activity is 'insignificant'.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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