Governance
City Knowledge and Innovation Clusters
- 13 Aug 2019
- 3 min read
Six cities — Bhubaneswar, Chandigarh, Jodhpur, Pune, Ahmedabad and Hyderabad will be developmed as City Knowledge and Innovation Clusters.
- The project is led by the office of the Principal Scientific Advisor (PSA) on a priority basis.
- These clusters will provide a connect between the existing research and knowledge setups at institutions and various industries that exist in the city or state.
- A huge amount of knowledge and fiscal resources exist within a city or region. If these independent entities connect through a virtual platform, optimisation of resources can be achieved and various sectors will be able to work in partnership.
- The project will assist industries in gaining access to existing technology, and help academic institutions and R&D facilities commercialise this technology.
- Under the project each city cluster will be have a nodal office headed by a Chief Executive Officer (CEO), who will be selected by the stakeholders. Government officials, such as municipal commissioners, will also be a part of the city cluster.
- The nodal offices will be run and funded by the PSA’s office for the first three years, within which time the stakeholders will have to look at how to make the initiative independent of government funding and sustainable.
- The aim of the project is that over a period of time, city clusters will be able to bid for international projects and seek international funding from organisations like the World Bank.
- To enhance collaboration of research and facilities in the clusters, the government is also planning to set up I-Stemm (a web portal which will function as a nationwide inventory of all public funded institutions) as well as all scientific instruments and infrastructure.
- It can be noted that, Chandigarh has already experimented with a version of the project called Chandigarh Region Innovation Knowledge Cluster (CRIKC) where the city has opened its laboratories to students of Panjab University. The Chandigarh model has done well and the government is looking to extend it to the rest of the state.
