Tamil Nadu - Chennai   

Corporates coming back to college to earn credits

CHENNAI: The likes of Tatas, Amada, Ashok Leyland and Reliance Telecom will return to college this year. Enrolled as participants in the IIT-Madras research park due to open this year, more than 25 corporates from across India and the world will have to “earn credits” to keep themselves from being “thrown out” of the park.

“We are all professors here, so all we have to ensure performance of our students is credits,” says IIT-Madras director M.S. Ananth.

“We were explaining the concept to some of our alumni, and they say it brings back bad memories of their student days here…It got a huge laugh at our last board meeting,” says Sandhya Shekhar, chief executive of the new research park.

The system requires companies to earn a minimum of 100 credits per 1,000 square feet they lease at the park to keep their place. If they manage 150 credits, they get a bonus reserved for star students: a Rs.10 per square foot reduction in their rental rate.

So how do they pick up these credits? Well, commissioning and sponsoring R&D projects or consultancy to IIT-Madras will earn them 200 credits per Rs.10 lakh. Sponsoring or guiding a Ph.D student will garner 100 credits, while an MS student will add another 75 credits.

Providing part-time employment to students can earn 2.5 credits a month for an undergraduate student and double that for a postgraduate student. If company employees become adjunct faculty, they can bring in 200 credits, while teaching by industry personnel will be rewarded at the rate of 2 credits per hour.

The credit system is meant to ensure that the purpose of the research park is maintained. “We want a preponderance of innovation-focussed activity, through collaboration with the institute…The last thing we want to do is to dilute this to a real estate proposition,” says Dr. Shekhar, pointing out that these companies are being offered space in a prime spot off the IT corridor at a concessional rate.

The rental advance from these companies is being used to fund the first phase of the project, along with a Rs.75-crore loan from Canara Bank and an interest-free loan of Rs.100 crore expected from the Union Ministry of Human resource Develoment.

Dr. Shekhar says the problem with many such research parks is that the links with the academia are not sustained after the initial enthusiasm. She hopes regularly assessing the credit performance will ward off lethargy. “If something is not measured, there is no guarantee of success,” agrees C. Mohan Ram, managing director of Lattice Bridge, which is renting 12,000 square feet at the park for collaborative research in developing speech engines. His company’s plan to earn credits includes sponsored research, faculty involvement and motivating its staff to study at IIT-Madras.

“India needs 150 such research parks,” says Dr. Ananth. The first is always the hardest. “We hope our model can now be replicated and scaled up by others,” says Dr. Shekhar.

IIT has a reputation for keeping the brightest of students on their toes. Now, it is extending its treatment to India Inc.

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