The availability of human resources continues to be a major challenge for the chemical industry in India, says Prof. Dr. R. K. Khandal, President - R&D and Business Development, India Glycols Ltd. who believes that there is a dearth of chemical engineers with technical skill sets in the country.

Explaining further, Dr. Khandal adds, “Universities in India must become self-sustainable like the way China has done it. Despite being behind us a few decades ago, they have created universities that are much ahead of us now. The number of chemical engineers from Indian universities is less than 10%. The programs that are offered by top institutes are not on technical ground but mostly integrated courses such as BTech with MBA. Apart from that, the research in chemical science has come down drastically and suffered strongly in terms of output. The top students are more interested in commerce and business. Hardly 17-18% students are going for chemistry and the number for basic chemistry is even lower.”

Dr. Khandal spoke along with other renowned academicians at the E-conference, "Role of academia in enabling chemical industry Achieve Newer Heights" organized by Indian Chemical News on July 16, 2021. The discussion moderated by Pravin Prashant, Editor, Indian Chemical News focused on the bottlenecks in industry-academia collaboration and making academia and research institutions industry friendly.

Emphasizing the complete overhaul of the chemical education system, Prof. G. D. Yadav, Emeritus Professor of Eminence, Institute of Chemical Technology Mumbai calls for introduction of trimester system and 5 year integrated programs.

“The manufacturing sector, especially chemicals, have been ignored for long and must be given enough attention. Chemicals are the fulcrum of almost all the industries and an important pillar of the 5 trillion dollar industry that the government is talking about. To achieve the required growth, we must begin at the universities that could turn into hubs of innovation. We must encourage the students to get exposure to the industry to learn about the practical aspects and the real world outside classrooms. The students can come back with ideas after they work with the industry and startups,” said Prof. Yadav.

There is a disconnect between the industry and the understanding of academics, feels Dr. Jhillu Singh Yadav, Provost, Director & Trustee, Indrashil University. “I have often seen that academicians aren’t even aware of the prices of chemicals while planning research projects. They must have a better connection with their industry counterparts and the products offered by them. Most academicians need funds which they receive from the government and thus they have developed a comfort zone. Comparatively, industries don’t have such a thing as they are output driven and continuously aiming to generate revenues. The leading government departments such as DST and DBT should modify their funding rules and make it more output oriented. Heartening to find that competitive funding is being encouraged by the current government and we hope that a national policy will be formed in this regard."

As per Prof. Gautam Radhakrishna Desiraju, Professor, Solid State and Structural Chemistry Unit, Indian Institute of Science Bangalore, “There is a mismatch between the industry size and the budget allocated for research activities. Funding allocation is a standard deviation compared to the size of industry. The fact is good science happens in rich countries and it further makes the science better and these countries even richer. Due to lack of funds, our academic research is not of international standards. While academia must be made outcome based and money oriented, industry too must have liberal pay scale to attract talent. Aspirational India needs outstanding academic research and an industry that hires young PhD students at appropriate times to stop the brain drain.”

Prof. Vajja Sambasiva Rao, Vice Chancellor, SRM University AP calls for promotion of Corporate Education Responsibility (CER) on the pattern of CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) and required tax exemption by the government. “Continuing education is the need of the hour. Unlike the past we can’t just take a certification and then go back to get updated. Therefore, there is a need to have updated courses. Collaborative programmes must have multi-stream fields such as industrial production and development. These can churn out industry oriented resources. Industry must come forward to create chairs in these areas. University professors must visit the industry quite often and industry executives must equally compliment this relationship. For example, the deep industry engagement has benefitted the BITS Pilani and this business model has been emulated by many universities.”

The industry and academia must not put pressure on each other and rather work together to create a win-win situation, says Ashok Panjwani, Executive Director, UPL Limited and President, UPL University of Sustainable Technology. “Both industry and academia must work together to make improvements. Involving the industry in the academic council must be equally reciprocated with industry exposure to university students and faculty. Many other industries have learnt and implemented it. There is great scope as 90% of products in day to day life in India have chemicals in various forms. India has just 2% contribution to chemical exports and is one tenth of China’s share.”

Sharing the major trends from industry perspective, Bijal Mathkar, R&I Director, Solvay Research and Innovation Center India says, “Green energy, circularity, specialty chemicals are the key trends being talked about globally. Sustainability, Internet of Things (IoT), digitization, and automation are being implemented across segments. However, going beyond these trends, I must emphasize the value around food technology and clean energy, especially oxygen that recently was a major concern during pandemic times. We must work around these critical areas for the future. Another trend is the patent publishing spree which I believe wouldn’t be of much consequence if not creating value. As a recruiter, I would go for a person who shares the research and tangible value addition than a person with a lot of papers and citations. Tangible value has to be a key trend like quick decision making.”

Academia needs to rebrand itself, says Dr. S. Chandrasekhar, Director, CSIR-IICT while outlining the way forward for its transformation. “The discussion on academia industry mistrust goes beyond current times. While most of the time it is said that there aren’t enough opportunities for academia in industry, the fact is that excellence will be chosen by all as the industry quickly grabs the real talent. Industry looks for tangible output and academia looks at non-tangible output. Apart from that, we must learn from western counterparts where professors contribute actively to build startups. We must stop looking at industry only and collaborate with government and international bodies to do outstanding research.”