Institutions Innovation Council

About IIC

In the year 2018, the Ministry of Education (MoE), Government of India, through its Innovation Cell (MIC), launched the Institution's Innovation Council (IIC) programme in collaboration with the All-India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) for Higher Educational Institutions (HEIs). The initiative was conceived with the objective of systematically nurturing a culture of innovation and strengthening the start-up ecosystem within academic institutions.

The primary mandate of the IIC is to actively engage a large number of faculty members, students, and staff in innovation and entrepreneurship-related activities. These include ideation, problem-solving, proof-of-concept development, design thinking, intellectual property rights (IPR), project handling, and management at the pre-incubation and incubation stages. Through such structured engagement, the IIC seeks to establish and sustain a vibrant innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem within HEIs.

The IIC framework has been designed to address key challenges commonly observed in higher education institutions, such as the limited number of innovation and entrepreneurship activities, their sporadic and unplanned nature, minimal involvement of institutional leadership, lack of coordination, and inefficient mobilisation and utilisation of resources. These factors have traditionally hindered the effective harnessing of the creative potential of young minds and the development of a robust innovation ecosystem.

The IIC model is distinctive in its structured and comprehensive approach, integrating flexible academic calendars, a well-defined scoring and reward mechanism, decentralised operations with clear allocation of responsibilities, continuous progress monitoring, and incentive-based motivation. All these components are coordinated through a strong digital platform, ensuring transparency and effectiveness in implementation.

Over the past few years, the IIC has emerged as a sustainable and scalable model for promoting innovation and entrepreneurship within HEIs. The collective efforts of IIC institutions have made a significant contribution towards strengthening the national innovation and start-up ecosystem. India's recent improvement to the 48th position in the Global Innovation Index (GII) stands as a testament to the impact of such initiatives.

Functions 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.

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 a functional ecosystem for scouting ideas and pre-incubation of ideas.
• Develop better cognitive ability among students.