IIT Madras, Delhi, Mumbai lead race for patents in 2019-20
NEWDELHI: The Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras has emerged as the country’s leading technical institution in creating new knowledge, as 186 patents were filed in the academic year 2019-20.
The IITs of Delhi and Mumbai are ranked next, with 152 and 135 patents, respectively.
IIT-Kanpur has increased its tally of patents from 47 in 2018-19 to 78 in 2019-20. The number of patents registered at IIT in Roorkee and Guwahati was 42 and 26, respectively.
While the older and established IITs have been improving their patents score,the newer ones are lagging behind.
The IITs at Mandi and Ropar, which are comparatively much younger institutions, registered five and seven patents, respectively, but did better than many other peers.Top policymakers in the Union Human Resource Development (HRD) ministry are examining the latest data to find ways in which research and innovation in the country’s best technical institutions can receive a boost.“The performance of institutions in creating new research is a key parameter in evaluating their global standing. A key thrust area of the ministry, under Human Resource Development (HRD) minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank, is to boost international rankings.
The ministry is looking at ways to comprehensively boost creation of new knowledge in technical institutions,” said a senior ministry official, who didn’t wish to be named.
According to the latest data accessed by HT, the IITs in Patna, Jodhpur and Hyderabad registered four patents each in 2019-20.
The IIT in Gandhinagar and Bhubaneswar registered eight and three patents, respectively, in 2019-20. The IIT in Indore secured two patents, while the IIT (Indian School of Mines) in Dhanbad had three to its name in this academic year.Most IITs have shown an upward trend towards registering patent in the last five years.The official, however, clarified that while these were the latest figures, there could be a marginal increase as the academic year is drawing to a close. The Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, also consistently scores high on research and registering patents.
The older IITs have the advantage of having more students enrolled in their Ph.D programmes and are also publishing more research papers.
For instance in 2019-20, IITMumbai awarded 385 Ph.Ds, while IIT-Delhi gave 331. IIT-Ropar awarded 28 Ph.Ds during the corresponding period. IIT-Mumbai published 2,498 research papers, while the tally for IITJodhpur was 147.
Data shows the faculty strength is another reason that explains the gap in the publication of research papers. The IITs of Delhi and Mumbai have a faculty strength of around 600-700. While, the corresponding figure for the younger institutions is around 200. IIT- Hyderabad’s faculty strength is 212, but it would be much less in other institutions.
“The aim is to bring out the best research from institutions in a bid to sustain a continuous process of critical thinking,” said the senior official quoted above.
THE OLDER IITS HAVE THE ADVANTAGE OF HAVING MORE STUDENTS ENROLLED IN THEIR PH.D PROGRAMMES AND ARE ALSO PUBLISHING MORE RESEARCH PAPERS