In the year 2018, the Ministry of Education (MoE) through MoE’s Innovation Cell (MIC) launched
the Institution’s Innovation Council (IIC) program in collaboration with AICTE for Higher
Educational Institutions (HEIs) to systematically foster the culture of innovation and start-up
ecosystem in education institutions. Primarily, IICs’ role is to engage large number of faculty,
students and staff in various innovation and entrepreneurship related activities such as
ideation, Problem solving, Proof of Concept development, Design Thinking, IPR, project handling
and management at Pre-incubation/Incubation stage, etc., so that innovation and entrepreneurship
ecosystem gets established and stabilized in HEIs. The IIC model is designed to address the
existing challenges/issues in HEIs such as less numbers, occasional and unplanned Innovation &
Entrepreneurship (I&E) activities organised in HEIs with low involvement of top leadership, lack
of coherence and absence of synergy in resource mobilization, deployment and underutilization of
creative potential of youths as major barrier for vibrant I&E ecosystem to emerge from HEIs.
Major Focus
- To create a vibrant local innovation ecosystem.
- Start-up supporting mechanism in HEIs.
- Prepare institute for Atal Ranking of institutions on innovation achievements framework.
- Establish function ecosystem for scouting ideas and pre-incubation of ideas.
- Develop better cognitive ability among students.
Function of IIC
- To conduct various Innovation, IPR and entrepreneurship-related activities prescribed by MIC
in time bound fashion.
- Identify and reward innovations and share success stories.
- Organize periodic workshops/ seminars/ interactions with entrepreneurs, investors,
professionals and
create a mentor pool for student innovators.
- Network with peers and national entrepreneurship development organizations.
- Create an Institution’s Innovation portal to highlight innovative projects carried out by
institution’s faculty and students.
- Organize Hackathons, idea competition, mini-challenges etc. with the involvement of
industries.
