Innovation and Startup Policy For Students and Faculty: Message From
Innovation and Startup Policy For Students and Faculty: Message From
Innovation and Startup Policy For Students and Faculty: Message From
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Affiliated to Dr. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam Technical University, Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh
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Affiliated to Dr. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam Technical University, Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh
Preamble
In November 2016, All India Council of Technical Education (AICTE) released a Startup Policy document
for AICTE approved institutions, to address the need of inculcation of innovation and entrepreneurial
culture in higher education institutions (HEIs). The policy primarily focused on guiding the AICTE
approved institutions in implementing ‘Startup Action Plan’ of Government of India. Subsequent to release
of the Startup policy by AICTE and further interaction & feedback received from education institutions, a
need was felt for a more elaborate and comprehensive policy guiding document, which could be applicable
for all the HEIs in India.
In order to adopt NISP at institution level, an eight-member committee was constituted by Jaipuria institute
of Management to formulate detailed guidelines for various aspects related to innovation, Startup and
entrepreneurship management. This committee will be deliberating on various facets for nurturing the
innovation and Startup culture in institution, which will be covering Intellectual Property ownership,
revenue sharing mechanisms, norms for technology transfer and commercialization, equity sharing, etc.
Vision
u To envision institute towards start-ups and entrepreneurship opportunities and leveraging the
potential of student’s problem solving & entrepreneurial mind-set and promoting a strong intra and
inter-institutional partnerships.
Mission
u We intend to adopt Innovation and Start-up Policy for students and faculty. The guidelines
will provide ways to the faculty and the students in the institution for developing
entrepreneurial agenda, managing Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) ownership and
technology licensing and equity sharing in Startups or enterprises established by faculty
and students.
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Affiliated to Dr. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam Technical University, Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh
c) A sustainable financial strategy should be defined in order to reduce the organizational constraints
to work on the entrepreneurial agenda. Business Plan competition “PITCH” will be an annual
feature in the institution.
d) For expediting the decision making, hierarchical barriers should be minimized, and individual
autonomy and ownership of initiatives should be promoted.
e) Importance of innovation and entrepreneurial agenda should be known across the institute and
should be promoted and highlighted at institutional programs such as conferences, convocations,
workshops, etc.
f) Student and faculty start-up Policy and action plan should be formulated at university level, which
is in line with the current document along with well-defined short-term and long-term goals.
Micro action plan should also be developed by the affiliated institute to accomplish the policy
objectives.
g) Institute should develop and implement I & E strategy and policy for the entire institute in order
to integrate the entrepreneurial activities across various centers, departments, faculties, within the
institute, thus breaking the silos.
h) Product to market strategy for start-ups should be developed by the institute on case to case basis.
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Affiliated to Dr. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam Technical University, Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh
i) Development of entrepreneurship culture should not be limited within the boundaries of the
institution.
I. Institute should be the driving force in developing entrepreneurship culture in its vicinity
(regional, social and community level). This shall include giving opportunity for regional start-
ups, provision to extend facilities for outsiders and active involvement for the institute in defining
strategic direction for local development.
II. Strategic international partnerships should be developed using bilateral and multilateral channels
with international innovation clusters and other relevant organizations. Moreover, international
exchange programs, internships, engaging the international faculties in teaching and research
should also be promoted.
2. Startups Enabling Institutional Infrastructure
Creation of innovation and start-up cell, pre-incubation and incubation facilities for nurturing innovations
and startups in institution should be undertaken. Incubation and Innovation need to be organically
interlinked. Without innovation, new enterprises are unlikely to succeed. The goal of the effort should be
to link INNOVATION to ENTREPRISES to FINANCIAL SUCCESS.
a) Institution is advised to create facilities within their institution for supporting pre-incubation (e.g.
IICs as per the guidelines by MHRD’s Innovation Cell, EDC, IEDC, New-Gen IEDC, Innovation
Cell, Startup Cell, incubation club, Student Clubs, etc.) and Incubation/ acceleration by
mobilizing resources from internal and external sources.
b) This Pre-Incubation/Incubation facility should be accessible 24x7 to students, staff and faculty of
all disciplines and departments across the institution.
3. Nurturing Innovations and Start ups
a) Institution is expected to establish processes and mechanisms for easy creation and nurturing of
Start-ups/enterprises by students, staff (including temporary or project staff), faculty, alumni and
potential start up applicants even from outside the institutions.
b) In case an institute doesn’t have a dedicated facility/ infrastructure of its own, then it may reach
out to nearest incubation facilities in other HEIs in order to facilitate access to their students, staff
and faculty.
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Affiliated to Dr. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam Technical University, Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh
d) Institute will facilitate the startup activities/ technology development by allowing students/
faculty/ staff to use institute infrastructure and facilities, as per the choice of the potential
entrepreneur in the following manners:
a) Institute should recruit staff that have a strong innovation and entrepreneurial/ industrial
experience, behaviour and attitude. This will help in fostering the I&E culture.
I. Some of the relevant faculty members with prior exposure and interest should be deputed for
training to promote I&E.
II. To achieve better engagement of staff in entrepreneurial activities, institutional policy on career
development of staff should be developed with constant upskilling.
b) Faculty and departments of the institute have to work in coherence and cross-departmental
linkages should be strengthened through shared faculty, cross-faculty teaching and research in
order to gain maximum utilization of internal resources and knowledge.
c) Periodically some external subject matter experts such as guest lecturers or alumni can be engaged
for strategic advice and bringing in skills which are not available internally.
d) Faculty and staff should be encouraged to do courses on innovation, entrepreneurship
management and venture development from the platforms like NIESBUD, NEN and Coursera
(for certificates).
e) In order to attract and retain right people, institute should develop academic and non-academic
incentives and reward mechanisms for all staff and stakeholders that actively contribute and
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support entrepreneurship agenda and activities
I. The reward system for the staff may include sabbaticals, office and lab space for entrepreneurial
II. The recognition of the stakeholders may include offering use of facilities and services, strategy
for shared risk, as guest teachers, fellowships, associateships, etc.
III. A performance matrix should be developed and used for evaluation of annual performance.
5. Creating Innovation Pipeline and Pathways for Entrepreneurs at
Institute Level
a) To ensure exposure of maximum students to innovation and pre incubation activities at their early
stage and to support the pathway from ideation to innovation to market, mechanisms should be
devised at institution level through Incubation Cell Orientation programme.
I. Spreading awareness among students, faculty and staff about the value of entrepreneurship and
its role in career development or employability should be a part of the institutional entrepreneurial
agenda.
II. Students/ staff should be taught that innovation (technology, process or business innovation) is a
mechanism to solve the problems of the society and consumers. Entrepreneurs should innovate
with focus on the market niche.
III. Students should be encouraged to develop entrepreneurial mindset through experiential learning
by exposing them to training in cognitive skills (e.g. design thinking, critical thinking, etc.), by
inviting first generation local entrepreneurs or experts to address young minds. Initiatives like
idea and innovation competitions, hackathons, workshops, bootcamps, seminars, conferences,
exhibitions, mentoring by academic and industry personnel, throwing real life challenges, awards
and recognition should be routinely organized. There will be two such events: workshop and start-
up summit in the institution to develop entrepreneurial mindset through experiential learning.
IV. To prepare the students for creating the start up through the education, integration of education
activities with enterprise-related activities should be done.
b) The institute should establish Institution’s Innovation Councils (IICs) as per the guidelines of
MHRD’s Innovation Cell and allocate appropriate budget for its activities. IICs should guide
institutions in conducting various activities related to innovation, startup and entrepreneurship
development. Collective and concentrated efforts should be undertaken to identify, scout,
acknowledge, support and reward proven student ideas and innovations and to further facilitate
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Affiliated to Dr. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam Technical University, Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh
their entrepreneurial journey.
c) Institute must develop a ready reckoner of Innovation Tool Kit, which must be kept on the
homepage on institute’s website to answer the doubts and queries of the innovators and enlisting
the facilities available at the institute.
a) Diversified approach should be adopted to produce desirable learning outcomes, which should
include cross disciplinary learning using mentors, labs, case studies, games, etc. in place of
traditional lecture-based delivery.
I. Student clubs/ bodies/ departments must be created for organizing competitions, bootcamps,
workshops, awards, etc. These bodies should be involved in institutional strategy planning to
ensure enhancement of the student’s thinking and responding ability.
II. Institute should start annual ‘INNOVATION & ENTREPRENEURSHIP AWARD’ to recognize
outstanding ideas, successful enterprises and contributors for promoting innovation and
enterprises ecosystem within the institute.
III. For creating awareness among the students, the teaching methods should include case studies on
business failure and real-life experience reports by startups.
IV. Tolerating and encouraging failures: Our systems are not designed for tolerating and encouraging
failure. Failures need to be elaborately discussed and debated to imbibe that failure is a part of
life, thus helping in reducing the social stigma associated with it. Very importantly, this should
be a part of institute’s philosophy and culture.
V. Innovation champions should be nominated from within the students/ faculty/ staff for each
department/ stream of study.
II. In the beginning of every academic session, institute should conduct an induction program about
the importance of I&E so that freshly inducted students are made aware about the entrepreneurial
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Affiliated to Dr. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam Technical University, Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh
agenda of the institute and available support systems. Curriculum for the entrepreneurship
education should be continuously updated based on entrepreneurship research outcomes. This
should also include case studies on failures.
III. Industry linkages should be leveraged for conducting research and survey on trends in technology,
research, innovation, and market intelligence.
IV. Sensitization of students should be done for their understanding on expected learning outcomes.
V. Student innovators, startups, experts must be engaged in the dialogue process while developing
the strategy so that it becomes need based.
VI. Customized teaching and training materials should be developed for startups.
VII. It must be noted that not everyone can become an entrepreneur. The entrepreneur is a leader, who
would convert an innovation successfully into a product, others may join the leader and work for
the startup. It is important to understand that entrepreneurship is about risk taking. One must
carefully evaluate whether a student is capable and willing to take risk.
c) Pedagogical changes need to be done to ensure that maximum number of student projects and
innovations are based around real life challenges. Learning interventions developed by the
institute for inculcating entrepreneurial culture should be constantly reviewed and updated.
7. Collaboration, Co-creation, Business Relationships and Knowledge
Exchange
a) Stakeholder engagement should be given prime importance in the entrepreneurial agenda of the
institute. Institute should find potential partners, resource organizations, micro, small and
medium- sized enterprises (MSMEs), social enterprises, schools, alumni, professional bodies and
entrepreneurs to support entrepreneurship and co-design the programs.
II. Institute will organize networking events for better engagement of collaborators and should open
up the opportunities for staff, faculty and students to allow constant flow of ideas and knowledge
through meetings, workshops, space for collaboration, lectures, etc. The event will be titled as
“Startup Summit” and it will be a regular feature
III. Mechanism should be developed by the institute to capitalize on the knowledge gained through
these collaborations.
b) The institute should develop policy and guidelines for forming and managing the relationships
with external stakeholders including private industries.
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Affiliated to Dr. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam Technical University, Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh
c) Knowledge exchange through collaboration and partnership should be made a part of institutional
policy and institute must provide support mechanisms and guidance for creating, managing and
coordinating these relationships.
I. Through formal and informal mechanisms such as internships, teaching and research exchange
programmes, clubs, social gatherings, etc., faculty, staff and students of the institute should be
given the opportunities to connect with their external environment.
II. Connect of the institute with the external environment must be leveraged in form of absorbing
information and experience from the external ecosystem into the institute’s environment.
III. Single Point of Contact (SPOC) mechanism should be created in the institute for the students,
faculty, collaborators, partners and other stakeholders to ensure access to information.
b. Formulation of strategy and impact assessment should go hand in hand. The information on impact
of the activities should be actively used while developing and reviewing the entrepreneurial strategy.
c. Impact assessment for measuring the success should be in terms of sustainable social, financial and
technological impact in the market. For innovations at pre-commercial stage, development of sustainable
enterprise model is critical. COMMERCIAL success is the ONLY measure in long run.
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For exploring the top start-up stories and understanding the mechanism, the students and faculty can visit
following web links:
Glossary
Accelerators: Startup Accelerators design programs in batches and transform promising business ideas
into reality under the guidance of mentors and several other available resources.
Angel Fund: An angel investor is a wealthy individual who invests his or her personal capital and shares
experiences, contacts, and mentors (as possible and required by the startup in exchange for equity in that
startup). Angels are usually accredited investors. Since their funds are involved, they are equally desirous
in making the startup successful.
Cash flow management: Cash flow management is the process of tracking how much money is coming
into and going out of your business.
Co-Creation: Co-creation is the act of creating together. When applied in business, it can be used as is
an economic strategy to develop new business models, products and services with customers, clients,
trading partner or other parts of the same enterprise or venture.
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Affiliated to Dr. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam Technical University, Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh
Compulsory Equity: An equity share, commonly referred to as ordinary share also, represents the form
of fractional or part ownership in which a shareholder, as a fractional owner, undertakes the maximum
entrepreneurial risk associated with a business venture. The holders of such shares are members of the
company and have voting rights.
Corporate Social: Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is a self-regulating business model that helps
Responsibility a company be socially accountable – to itself, its stakeholders, and the public.
Entrepreneurial culture: A culture/ society that enhance the exhibition of the attributes, values, beliefs
and behaviors that are related to entrepreneurs.
Entrepreneurial: An Individual who has an entrepreneurial mindset and wants to make his/her idea
Individuals successful.
Entrepreneurship: Entrepreneurship education seeks to provide students with the knowledge, skills
education and motivation to encourage entrepreneurial success in a variety of settings.
Experiential learning: Experiential learning is the process of learning through experience, and is more
specifically defined as learning through reflection on doing.
Hackathon: A hackathon is a design sprint-like event in which computer programmers and others
involved in software development, including graphic designers, interface designers, project managers, and
others, often including domain experts, collaborate intensively on software projects.
Host Institution: Host institutions refer to well-known technology, management and R&D institutions
working for developing startups and contributing towards developing a favorable entrepreneurial
ecosystem.
Incubation: Incubation is a unique and highly flexible combination of business development processes,
infrastructure and people, designed to nurture and grow new and small businesses by supporting them
through the early stages of development.
Intellectual Property: A licensing is a partnership between an intellectual property rights owner (licensor)
Rights Licensing and another who is authorized to use such rights (licensee) in exchange for an agreed
payment (fee or royalty).
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Knowledge Exchange: Knowledge exchange is a process which brings together academic staff, users of
research and wider groups and communities to exchange ideas, evidence and expertise.
Pedagogy and Experiential: It refers to specific methods and teaching practices (as an academic subject
or Learning theoretical concept) which would be applied for students working on startups. The experiential
learning method will be used for teaching 'startup related concepts and contents' to introduce a positive
influence on the thought processes of students. Courses like 'business idea generation' and 'soft skills for
startups' would demand experiential learning rather than traditional class room lecturing. Business cases
and teaching cases will be used to discuss practical business situations that can help students to arrive at a
decision while facing business dilemma(s). Field based interactions with prospective customers; support
institutions will also form a part of the pedagogy which will orient the students as they acquire field
knowledge.
Pre-incubation: It typically represents the process which works with entrepreneurs who are in the
very early stages of setting up their company. Usually, entrepreneurs come into such programs with just
and idea of early prototype of their product or service. Such companies can the graduate into full-fledged
incubation programs.
Prototype: A prototype is an early sample, model, or release of a product built to test a concept or
process.
Science parks: A science park, also known as a research park, technology park or innovation centre, is a
purpose-built cluster of office spaces, labs, workrooms and meeting areas designed to support research and
development in science and technology.
Seed fund: Seed fund is a form of securities offering in which an investor invests capital in a startup
company in exchange for an equity stake in the company.
Special Purpose Vehicle: Special purpose vehicle, also called a special purpose entity, is a subsidiary
created by a parent company to isolate financial risk. Its legal status as a separate company makes its
obligations secure even if the parent company goes bankrupt.
Startup: An entity that develops a business model based on either product innovation or service
innovation and makes it scalable, replicable and self-reliant and as defined in Gazette Notification No.
G.S.R. 127(E) dated February 19, 2019.
Technology Business: Technology Business incubator (TBI) is an entity, which helps technology-based
Incubator startup businesses with all the necessary resources/support that the startup needs to evolve
and grow into a mature business.
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Technology: Technology commercialization is the process of transitioning technologies from
Commercialization the research lab to the marketplace.
Venture Capital: It is the most well-known form of start up funding. Venture Capitalists (VCs)
typically reserve additional capital for follow-up investment rounds. Another huge value that VCs provide
is access to their networks for employees or clients for products or services of the startup.
Bibliography
• Guideline for Implementation of SSlP for Institutions/Colleges; Student Startup and Innovation
Policy (SSIP) 2017, Directorate of Technical Education, Government of Gujarat, October 2017
• Guideline for Developing Student Innovation &Startup Ecosystem in University/Engineering
Campuses, TEQIP-III, Ministry of Human Resource Development
• A Guiding Framework for Entrepreneurial Universities, OECD, European Commission, 18th
December, 2012
• For Faculty: Best Practices for Startups, Stanford University,
https://otl.stanford.edu/industry/stanford- startups/faculty-best-practices-startups, visited on 5th
September, 2019
• Faculty Entrepreneurship Policy, DA-IICT, 30th September, 2015
• For Students: Best Practices for Startups, Stanford University,
https://otl.stanford.edu/industry/stanford- startups/students-best-practices-startups, visited on 5th
September, 2019
• Startup Policy AICTE- 2016, All India Council of Technical Education, November 2016
• Student Startup Policy 2015, Kerala Technological University, Kerala
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