IIT Madras To Set Up A Centre To Study Indian Startup Ecosystem
- ByStartupStory | June 24, 2021
Indian Institute of Technology, Madras to launch a Centre to study Indian Startup ecosystem called CREST – Centre for Research on Startups and Risk Financing. The institute announced that CREST is to be set up in such a way that scholarly research can be co ducted on the areas of innovation, entrepreneurship and risk capital. A repository data account is to be made on startups, ventures and investors; then this information will be made available to entrepreneurs who are interested in Startups along with investors and policy makers. “There are several aspects of the Indian startup ecosystem that need to be studied. For example, looking at the factors that are crucial for decision making for investors when they back a startup or examining the mortality among startups to understand what worked for them and what didn’t. While there are many incubators across major educational and research institutes, we aim to also study how effective these incubators have been,” said A Thillai Rajan, principal investigator, CREST, and professor, Department of Management Studies at IIT-M.
Rajan also said that having such data at hand, will help startups, investors in taking quick decisions.“The role of higher education institutions in the area of start-ups and entrepreneurship is four-fold. The first is the creation of intellectual property that can be commercialised through startups. The second is to train for entrepreneurship through various formal and unstructured programs. The third is to provide a nurturing environment for startups by setting up incubators and providing access to various facilities to young startups. The fourth is to generate insights through rigorous research that can inform and guide policy making and practice. While substantial progress has been achieved in the first three, much needs to be done on the fourth,” Rajan added. He further said while this is a centre to study Indian Startup, one of the goals is also to increase cross – country research collaborations.