Chennai: On similar lines as the Research Park of IIT-Madras, the Anna University is planning to provide a platform for research ideas and prototypes by encouraging the students and faculty members to come out with products and incubate their start-up companies.

The new centre called the International Centre for Research Facilitation and Training (ICRFT), which will incubate startup companies and support research activities, will be inaugurated soon in the university campus.

The state government has approved the plan outlay of `50 crore over the period of five years to this centre. It will also be supported under a Public Private Partnership model with active participation from the industry.

“The centre will help the facilitation of research and product development. It will coordinate with the sources of funding, conduct reviews and enable effective translation of these research programs,” said S. Ganesan, registrar, Anna University.

The centre will have a depository of information on the research works, patents by the researchers. “If a faculty or student presents a new idea, it will be examined by a team of acclaimed experts. They will evaluate it and then decide about supporting it,” said J. Kumar, director, Centre for Planning and Development, Anna University.

“For the first time, we are creating a platform for supporting and institutionalising incubation activities. For already established research activities we will also support them to come out with the prototypes,” he said.

Anna University recently undertook a survey to list out the equipment available in the four campuses in the University. The university also plans to create awareness among the students about the equipment available.

It also plans to award support to students who volunteer to work in labs. “While they can support themselves during their studies, it can also help us to have reliable manpower inside our campus,” he added.