Fund crunch spurs NIPER to embrace tech transfer

CHANDIGARH: It's not the number of papers published that remain significant for academic excellence, rather, it's technology transfer that can help gain finances and commercialize a product being targeted as a yardstick to gain recognition. This is the new mantra of the National Institute of Pharmaceutical Education and Research (NIPER).The institute has adopted this approach following the crunch of grants that decreased by Rs 12.32 crore in the previous year's budget.While this year's budget is awaited, a budget of Rs 22.82 crore was sanctioned for the year 2012-2013 and for the year 2011-2012, the ministry of chemical and fertilizers released Rs 35.14 crore."We have moved ahead of the quantity of research publications to transfer of technologies. So far, we have had 6 such transfers that began in the year 2012. This has been helpful in generating funds and also translating research from laboratory to markets," said Dr K K Bhutani, director, NIPER, Mohali.There has been a shift from the era of volumes of publication to green technology. "What matters these days is quality of research work using environment-friendly methodologies. Initially it was number of publications, followed by patents and transfer of technology," said Dr Akshay Anand, editor, annals of neurosciences.The institute has set up an intellectual property right cell which generates information on patent filing. In 2011, the number of patents filed by the NIPER was 27, out of which only 8 were granted."We cannot waste the already tight funds on patents, which take around Rs 70 lakh for filing. They can be rejected and take a lot of years to be granted."So, we have asked the scientists to get industrial partners who can have a share in the technology and agree to meet the expenses for patent filing, etc. It ensures qualitative research which can go to the market," said the director.