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Scientific innovation has resulted in the development of newer technologies for the betterment of humankind. Academic and research organizations are the places where these technologies are actually ideated and/or invented. However, the process of technology transfer and its eventual successful commercialization covers many other facets, in addition to the scientific research alone. This study aims to draw attention towards certain policy gaps and thereby suggest plausible solutions for the improvement of technology transfer process in the Indian context.

Here, the authors present an extensive Web survey of technologies available for transfer/commercialization in 12 major Indian research organizations, namely, Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), Indian Council of Medical Research, Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, Defence Research and Development Organisation, Department of Atomic Energy, Department of Biotechnology, Indian Space Research Organisation, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay, Indian Institute of Science Bangalore, IIT Delhi, IIT Kharagpur and IIT Kanpur.

A total of 2,921 technologies were found to be available with respect to the above-mentioned organizations, with the highest of these in agricultural sciences and the maximum reported by ICAR.

Certain significant policy interventions of this study include the need of a central framework for deposition, management and dissemination of institutionally developed technologies. More attention and support is required for the technologically less developed research areas, and there is a need for the promotion of funding mechanisms for the prototype development, in addition to the already available funding schemes for other stages of technology commercialization.

Hence, the successful commercialization of the innovation from the Indian research labs requires the restructuring of the existing policies to eventually facilitate the economic growth of the nation.

This study discusses the major policy gaps of the Indian technology transfer process. For this, an extensive Web survey was carried out to enlist the various technologies available for transfer and commercialization in India from 12 major research organizations. The study presents the results and some major policy implications of the technology transfer and commercialization process in the Indian context.

Disadvantaged students face social exclusion and undergo a different treatment than mainstream students. This alters their entrepreneurial intention subsequently. This study aims to investigate the factors affecting disadvantaged students’ intention in their willingness to undergo entrepreneurship education as a vocational course. The variables include self-efficacy, need for achievement (nAch) and family background. The paper further examines whether entrepreneurship education intention enhances their entrepreneurial intention.

This study uses a deductive quantitative study as the chosen approach as it ensures complete anonymity and hence researcher bias is minimized. The sample consists of the third year, final year and postgraduate first year disadvantaged students from different streams of engineering, economics, arts and commerce. The study was conducted with a total of 319 students completing the questionnaire which used a five-point Likert scale.

Using the theory of planned behavior (TPB), the results show that willingness of disadvantaged students to study entrepreneurship as a vocational course is highly driven by their family background followed by self-efficacy and nAch. The results further strengthen the TPB and has implications for educators of entrepreneurship and a possibility of a widening of entrepreneurship education in disadvantaged community.

The study measured attitudes and willingness with intentions, but not actual behavior as this was a cross-sectional study. Also, repeated observations could not be made and dynamics of change could not be captured.

This is one of the few studies focused on entrepreneurial intention of students who are socially excluded and therefore it offers a possibility of widening of entrepreneurship education in countries such as India which display a collectivist culture and provides an intention-based linkage to entrepreneurship education among disadvantaged students. This study also puts subjective norm as a strong predictor of intentions which previous studies have refuted. The findings also suggest that there is a strong intent to study entrepreneurship among disadvantaged students in India, which makes entrepreneurship education a seemingly acceptable choice of education and suggests promise for its wider reach and penetration.