Govt to set up Research Foundation to strengthen academia-industry linkages

New Delhi, July 26 (UNI) The government will set up a National Research Foundation (NRF) to strengthen the research ecosystem in the country, Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan said on Monday.
He said the NRF with a proposed outlay of Rs 50,000 crore over a period of five years is being envisaged as an umbrella structure to improve linkages between R&D, academia and industry.
“One of the main objectives of NRF is to seed, grow and facilitate research at academic institutions, particularly at universities and colleges, where research capacity is currently in a nascent stage, ” the minister said in the Lok Sabha.
“It will also fund and support high-impact, large-scale, multi-investigator, multi-institution and, in some cases, interdisciplinary or multi-nation projects in collaboration with relevant ministries, departments, and other governmental and non-governmental entities, especially industry,” Pradhan said, adding that the National Education Policy, 2020 envisages transformational changes in the education sector.