| |9 AUGUST 2018HIGHERReviewresearch should not be just getting a PhD thesis submitted, getting a few papers published or awarding degrees and diplomas. Such an approach can prove counter-productive because future researchers or academicians may never become aware of basic in-dustry requirements, for example the need for research and development of a useful product along with focus on timelines to deliver the same.Thus, it is necessary to have an optimized research focus in Universi-ties starting at Master's degree cours-es itself, or even better at Bachelor's degree courses, to prepare a pool of industry-ready candidates in terms of their learning and thought-processes. As students are a high mobility pop-ulation, the research guide/Principal Investigator should have a more fo-cused and long-term plan to bring the research project (once initiated) to a useful closure and at the same time ensure that his/her students pass the baton to their successors to reach to the long-term objectives of the research started under one group/Principal Investigator. 2. Increasing exposure to In-dustry:Student orientation towards Industry-focused research is diffi-cult unless there is a good exposure of the overall academic team includ-ing students, research guides and administrating staff to the industry environment. This requires frequent industry visits, short-term industry training on focused activities, and importantly a continuous dialogue between Academic Research Insti-tutes/Universities and the Industry. In fact, for a particular field, such an interaction could be made as part of the key responsibility areas for aca-demic staff and part of the mandatory requirements in students' curricu-lum. Regular meetings with Indus-try will bring an enhancement of the latest ideas and key developments in the field as well as building a mutual rapport between the organizations. 3. Academia-Industry Part-nerships: Last but not the least, the most important part of bridging the gap is the passion to have successful Academia-Industry collaborations in-cluding public-private research part-nerships, collaborative grant applica-tions, and student trainings. Based on my personal experience, the major challenge in the academia-industry partnerships happens to be lack of a shared vision of the bigger goal, that is bringing a product useful to soci-ety from the overall research efforts of everyone involved. This is pos-sible when Industry acknowledges that the lion's share of basic research happens at the University/Academic research labs. Simultaneously, it is important that, Academia acknowl-edges that it takes a long route to convert proof-of-principle research into a product, and it also involves a significant risk undertaken by Indus-try.Both parties must appreciate the strengths of the other partner and leverage the same with mutual agree-ments to bring a fruitful outcome of the collaboration. A good Academia-Industry col-laboration could involve training stu-dents in the industry with hands-on experience through a research proj-ect, preferably with research fellow-ships sponsored by Industry. This process creates a pool of trained re-sources that become available to the same or other relevant industries. This comes with a challenge to main-tain difficult boundaries such as free pursuit of knowledge (important to Academia) versus strict confidential information (important to Industry) which could be successfully managed with appropriately planned projects and proper systems held in place within the organizations. Finally, the target of any successful partner-ship should be to build in systems to retain best talent in the country by creating enough job opportunities for the country.Despite this significant change, gaps remain to effectively leverage the academic research to its best potential and make it an even more productive endeavor
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