Innovation in India
Innovation and competitiveness have a dynamic, mutual relationship. Innovation thrives in a competitive environment and in turn, plays a key role in the achievement of such an environment. Innovation generates economic value, new jobs in the economy and cultures of entrepreneurship.
National Knowledge Commission (NKC) presented a document on ‘Innovations in India’. While literature on Innovation has been growing in recent times, the NKC survey on Innovation is perhaps the first detailed and in-depth quantitative and qualitative survey on Innovation in India.
The NKC survey confirms the rising Innovation activity and awareness in India as well as the need to continuously and publicly encourage this trend as a key enabler in India’s economic growth and competitiveness. However, there is need for further effort along a range of parameters in order to fully realize India’s Innovation potential.
Some of the important steps for introducing innovations are:
- Systematic reform of the higher education system (including skill based marketable vocational education) in India, which would act as an enabler for developing the required intellectual capital as well as lay the foundation for effective collaboration between industry, educational institutions and the government. Therefore, the mandate of the NKC, which is to guide policy and direct reforms to allow India to effectively use and create knowledge capital, is critical and extremely relevant in furthering the cause of Innovation and entrepreneurship in the Indian economy.
- The synergistic use of cumulative energies of the industry, the government, the educational system, the R&D environment and the consumer. The Innovation ecosystem is a complex environment that requires the coordinated functioning of a number of diverse factors in order to function effectively.
- Innovation also needs to become as wide spread as possible, spreading across the entire economy, from the grassroots to the large firm level. It is felt that a comprehensive effort to address these issues would act as a critical enabling factor for India to be amongst the global leaders in Innovation.
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