Developing Academia-Industry Linkages and Bridging the Gap

Developing academia-industry linkages is important for industry and universities(academia) but also for the whole nation. Like every relationship, this relationship requires a serious thought process, and understanding to develop. It also has several issues that need to be understood and resolved.

1). In Pakistan, academia only produces graduates that industry consumes. This is a one-way street, it is difficult to develop a fulfilling relationship in a one-way street

2). Another issue facing academia in Pakistan is that its only source of income is fees collected from students or government grants in case of public sector. 

3). In many cases, graduates being produced don't meet the ever-changing requirements of the industry or maybe in oversupply as compared to demand. This creates frustration for both industry and academia.

4). Academia expects that industry will provide internship and training to ever-growing number of graduates, whereas industry expects that academia will train graduates according to the latest trends, tools and technologies to meet its requirements. The industry also does not have enough resources to accommodate and train fresh graduates.

Academia has to work proactively to convert these challenges into opportunities. Academia has the manpower, time, and space, it needs to put these to the best use possible.

"Germany’s LMU Munich receives more industry funding per academic than any other institution in the world, according to Times Higher Education’s new Funding for Innovation ranking.

The university has topped a list of the world’s best 20 institutions based on their ability to secure research money from the private sector. It secured almost $400,000 (￡288,500) per academic from businesses in 2013.

The US’ Duke University takes second place, with a figure of almost $290,000, while the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) is third, with $254,700."

Average industry income per academic is one of the most important measures of success of the university, and its quality of education in the world(https://www.studyinchina.com.my/web/page/the-worlds-top-universities-attracting-funding/).

Here is the winning formula for innovation funding?

Johns Hopkins University, which received $250,000 of industry funding per academic in 2013, sees the majority come from pharmaceutical companies for its School of Medicine and its Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Here's another great example:

Duke University also has a close relationship with the medical and pharmaceutical industries through its Clinical Research Institute, which has more than 1,200 employees who work mostly on large clinical trials for new drugs. The institute’s total revenue is more than $200 million, 35 per cent of which comes from federal or other institutional funding, while the rest comes from industry research streams, said its director Eric Peterson.

Finding more examples internationally is not hard, and a lot can be learned from that. We can easily move some of the research to Pakistan, once we start looking in this direction.

There has been a lot of innovation and disruption in Fintech domain. Crypto-currencies and digital solutions for payments are key to economies of the future. Any student projects in this area, research and innovation in the technology and business domain is bound to attract the interest of industry and investors.

US fintech funding still going strong, following 20% jump in 2020.

https://www.spglobal.com/marketintelligence/en/news-insights/research/us-fintech-funding-still-going-strong-following-20-jump-in-2020

Here's how this can be done in Pakistan:-

1). Academia needs to focus on creating and monetizing intellectual property(IP). The intellectual property then becomes a magnet for industry and a valuable source of income for academia.

2). Academia needs to provide enabling environment for startups. Intellectual property and startups combined together will become a driving force for the nation and a valuable source of income for academia and universities.

3). Academia should also focus on monetizing some of its courses by following in the footsteps of Coursera, Udemy, and Udacity.

4). Academia needs to pick and follow the trends in industry, and lead with innovation.

Once academia goes on this road, it will be able to meet the requirements of the industry by producing top-notch talent, it will have no problem staying on the cutting edge, attract funding from local and international players, and will also be able to attract and retain top talent. 

Academia is the only source of knowledge workers for modern economy. Skills in hot demand in IT industry include databases, system administration, networks, security, business intelligence, data science, software engineering, project management and coding skills.

Our academia should aim to be the mother ship for Google, Microsoft, Daraz, Food Panda, Careem, and Uber of the future. We should not let final year projects(FYP) of undergraduates, and MS/PhD research of our students go to waste but should make all-out efforts to continuously improve these and commercialize some of these with the help of investors.

Leading research groups of the world such as the computer vision group(https://www.imperial.ac.uk/machine-learning/research/applications/computer-vision/), medical imaging group and so on have worked in these areas, and this is the reason they attract funding from industry and can be so successful. This is how we will need to move forward.

Reference

https://www.facebook.com/watch/live/?v=163579048868209&ref=watch_permalink

https://www.studyinchina.com.my/web/page/the-worlds-top-universities-attracting-funding/