Academia-industry Collaboration: Imperative For The Fast-changing Automobile Industry

The World Economic Forum’s (WEF) Global Competitiveness Index 2017-2018, which puts India at 40th place in a list of 138 nations, also ranks us at 26th on the index of industry-university collaboration on R&D. China is at number 28, while Switzerland, US, Israel, and Finland occupy the top four ranks. According to the Centre for Technology, Innovation and Economic Research (CTIER), “Industry-Academia research collaborations in India are dismally low, as indicated by collaboration output statistics. Collaboration in patenting is 0.4 % of the total volume of patents in India…”

Putting this in context of the 2013 World Bank observation that “collaboration between academia and industry is increasingly a critical component of efficient national innovation systems”, the undeniable link between innovation and collaboration is absolutely clear.

For the automotive sector, which grew at 14.41 % year-on-year between April-February 2017-18 to 26,402,671 vehicles and is now fast moving to e-mobility adoption and other environment friendly modes, disruption caused by innovation has arrived like an uninvited guest.

A VIABLE ECOSYSTEM

Today, there are about 2,500-odd colleges teaching electrical, communications, and mechanical engineering in India, and about 300 which teach automobile engineering. With the future in the automobile industry most likely to be all electric or at the very least hybrid, the country will need to drastically ramp up the quality and quantity of professionals to address this imminent explosive demand. The best way to do this is through collaboration between the academia and the industry, to further R&D efforts and create a suitable, relevant, and viable ecosystem for meeting the e-mobility market dynamics squarely.

With conventional components and conventional tools to integrate and apply the EV sub-systems giving way to altogether new devices and practices, change like never before is going to come to all aspects of automobile design – be they related to sensors, electronic control systems, power and battery management, material design, and so on. In fact, the potential of growth and therefore of commercial success is substantial in each of these factors. As a case in point, the auto electronics industry alone is estimated to reach $ 400 bn by 2024!

ADAPTIVE NECESSITY FOR INDIA