Biomedical Innovation Cluster: A pilot study

 India ranks 3rd among the most attractive destinations for technology transactions in the world. Modern India has a strong focus on science and technology realising that it is a key element for economic growth. India possesses one of the most important elements in creating a strong manufacturing unit, manpower. With India scheduled to rise above China with the total population by the end of FY22, A large question arises about India’s utilization of its large untapped potential of skilled citizens. With the Atmanirbhar Bharat initiative in full swing and with a faster increase of start-up incubations and investments coming to India, one must ask, where does India lack the most with regards to its development to becoming a challenger of the big leagues?

After careful assessment against the statistics of unemployment in the country in the urban sector. A majority of graduates (at approximately 20%) are unemployed in the country with the gap in unemployment set to increase further.

 



Fig 1: Cluster of countries in the Asia, NA, EU and BRICS cooperative showcasing expenditure vs researcher volume in each country. India is not one in the list despite being a nuclear capable country.

For India to rise as a global superpower, She must identify the following as a reason for her absence in the statistic presented by the OECD and UNESCO on gross national development index:

  • 1.      Upskilling 
  • 2.      Innovation 
  • 3.      Investment 
  • 4.      Marketing and promotion 
  • 5.      Educational reform 
  • 6.      Forward Policy and administrative reform 
  • 7.         Employee support infrastructure 
  • 8.      Promoting interactive businesses

Herein we discuss the potential areas of development and modernization with regards to R&D support to improve India’s position not just as a manufacturer but as a thinktank and a creator. This pilot study is meant to indicate the inspirations taken from other countries and the benefits of developing a cluster. A cluster would optimize the resources of manhours, money, material and manpower (MMMM’s) available to improve the efficiency of working and reducing the overall time to achieve desired results.

 

Herein we discuss two points as are highlighted in the above section

1.      Upskilling:

a.      Collaborate with government and organisations with an intent to provide upskilling to their existing pool of skilled employees. Improved training and exposure.

b.      Anticipating areas that requires more training by the employee under the study/program

c.      Promoting employee growth and development, removing the risks of job stagnation

d.      Collaborating with funding agencies to promote upskilling in areas of:

                                          i.     STEM

                                         ii.     Logistics

                                        iii.     Operations

                                        iv.     Finance

                                         v.     Quality (QA/QC)

                                        vi.     Sales

                                      vii.     HR

                                     viii.     Data Analysts

                        ix.     Other (as may be deemed necessary by the organisation or leaders of the pilot study)

e.      Recommendations, Include:

                                          i.     Reviewing existing second and third level education to prepare outgoing employees for the global job market

                                         ii.     Focus on one professional area at a time. Requirements of every division vary

                                        iii.     Design and deliver competency models to identify accurately between knowledge, skills and competencies of staff.

                                        iv.     Competency mapping to identify individuals who have the potential to go further. In the scale upgradation chart where just an aptitude is not enough, an attitude to execute is equally important.

                                         v.     Promote opportunities of interaction between different professional divisions to incubate and to allow growth of an individual through exposure and simultaneously promoting organic growth.

                                        vi.     Promote training model, out of the existing objective pattern to an essay-based assessment for two reasons:

1.      The employer’s benefit:

a.      An essay-based assessment improves the companies understanding of where it lacks with regards to training an individual candidate, be it soft skills or core skills.

b.      Feedbacks on the same can improve employee satisfaction in the role they are employed to and promote better working standards for the company to retain staff for longer terms

2.      The employee benefits: The essay-based system, provides the employee with an opportunity to sharpen their communication skills, to be articulate and concise in describing the errors and benefits of having undertaken a project. Measure what you can and learn from what you measure.

                                      vii.     The same model can then be supported for incorporation upstream in the educational levels of College/University, better preparing candidates for a global job role

2.      Innovation

a.      Connecting the needs of the existing market to the pool of researchers and skilled workers.

        i    Allowing for better communication between clinicians, researchers and manufacturers/engineers

                                         ii.     Reducing the overall time to develop a project/concept/result

b.      Commercialisation of R&D

                                          i.     Promoting new capabilities for interaction inter industry, inter-academia and between academy, industry and clinicians

                                          ii.     Can be promoted through Industrial PhD/masters programs that onboards clinicians as visiting faculty to the program and offers the research question based on candidate interests. Candidates may then be clustered into groups based on the industry specific targets.

c.      Align industry support using an aggregator platform where companies who have clinicians, academics and/or industries can join together to form a productive cluster with an aim to achieve mid to long term objectives.

d.      Promoting the increase in intensity and quality of R&D in India.

e.      Improving India’s reputation as a global hub for R&D

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Thank you for reading and please feel free to get in touch with your thoughts and opinions and ill aspire to get back to you within a week.
    

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