New Delhi, BHEL held its 2nd annual Industry-Academia Meet at its Corporate R&D Division. Directors/Deans and Senior Faculty members from 14 IITs and IISc Bengaluru participated in the daylong event, deliberating on the collaborative R&D efforts of BHEL with the academia. The visitors were also given a glimpse of ongoing frontier research activities at various Centres of Excellence in the campus. Mr. B.P. Rao, CMD, BHEL, in his inaugural address emphasised on increased collaboration between BHEL and the academia for facing the challenges of business in the infrastructure sector, the need for greater technology depth, higher value addition in the country and the need of in-house developments protected by suitable IP rights.
BHEL has already signed long term MoUs with 7 IITs and IISc prior to this event and the MoU with IIT Roorkee was signed during the day. More than 40 projects have been taken up in past one year and more are in the formulation stages. An approach of sharply focusing on future requirements, in line with upcoming opportunities and challenges in the market, and a mechanism of selection, facilitation and monitoring of R&D projects were concurred by all the participants in the meet. BHEL is the largest spender on R&D among large engineering companies in India, with an expenditure of more than 2.5% of its turnover and engages more than 700 engineers in R&D activities at its Corporate R&D Division and various manufacturing units. Nearly 20% of its annual turnover comes from in-house developments introduced in previous five years.