Policy Statement
With the Vision to give impetus to 'Entrepreneurship' and generate 'Employment', RMDEC has formulated “Entrepreneur and Startup Policy” to help “Entrepreneurs and Startups” promote new investments, create new business avenues, develop new startups and generate employment.
Policy Objectives
The RMDEC Faculty, Staffs and Students Startup policy objectives are :
a) To establish Entrepreneurship Development and Innovation Councils in the college by creating infrastructure such as Centre of excellence , pre - incubation centers, MSME business incubation centers etc.
b) To encourage the students to take up entrepreneurship as a preferred career choice and provide assistance for the successful launching of their start-ups.
c) To promote faculty and staff led startups to commercialize the products / process developed by them as per the RMDEC IPR policies.
Norms for the Faculty, Staff and Students Startup
This policy permits faculty, staff and students to transform the ideas into business for running Startup Company. Faculty startup may be a faculty member alone or with students or with faculty of other institutes or alumni or with other entrepreneurs. The following mechanisms are evolved for starting a company within the Institute.
For Faculty and Staff
a) The Institute shall provide space, infrastructure, mentorship support, seed funds, support for accounts, legal, IPRs etc. on case to case basis for the Startup company owned by Faculty and staff. In return for the services, the Institute may take equity / stake in the company mutually agreed upon at the time of incorporation of the startup.
b) If a faculty member is an Owner or Co-owner of such companies with the permission of the Institute and be a Director on the Board, he / she may also play an operational role (Technical Adviser, CEO, Manager etc.,) with the approval of the Institute with the conditions given below :
- No restriction on the shares that faculty / staff can hold, as long as they do not compromise in their academic and administrative work / responsibilities at the college.
- Faculty must clearly separate and distinguish on-going research work at the Institute from the work conducted at the startup / company
- Faculty must not involve research staff or other staff of institute in the activities of the startup and vice versa.
- Faculty must not accept honorariums or gifts from the startup.
c) In case the faculty / staff holds the executive or managerial position for more than three months in a startup company, they should be on sabbatical /leave without pay/ or utilize existing leave.
d) Other Faculty members may undertake projects from the company owned by a faculty member / staffs following the Institute norms of consultancy projects that prevails. Similarly, for the utilization of any testing / characterization of product developed by the company it should be as per the norms of the college testing charges.
e) IP Rights for the technology developed by the company and faculty shall be as per the IPR Policy of the RMDEC .
f) A Company owned or co-owned by a faculty/ staff will normally be required to incubate at the college incubator.
g) For the incubation of the Company owned or co-owned by a faculty / staff evaluation shall be as per the incubation policy of the existing incubator in the college.
For Students
RMDEC encourages as many startups by the students with interdepartmental and inter- institutional participation, taking note of the fact that startup planning and management requires inter-disciplinary skills. Students will be encouraged to develop entrepreneurial mindset through experiential learning by exposing them to training in cognitive skills (e.g. design thinking, critical thinking.), by inviting first generation local entrepreneurs or experts to address young minds. Initiatives like idea and innovation competitions, hackathons, workshops, boot camps, seminars, conferences, exhibitions, mentoring by academic and industry personnel, throwing real life challenges. Awards and recognition will be routinely organized. RMDEC prepares the students for creating startup through the above activities.
a) RMDEC will allow students to establish Startup or working part time for the startup already present with the Institute Incubator while studying.
b) Students may be allowed to opt for startup in place of mini project / summer training / Seminar with the approval of Concerned student’s Departmental Committee.
c) Students may be permitted to use the startup idea / prototype development as their major project work for the Institute academic requirements with approval from the affiliated incubator.
d) Student Startup may be permitted to use the address of the Hostel or the Incubator to register the Company while studying in the Institute
e) Students incubating a startup affiliated with the RMDEC incubator are required to follow their attendance requirement for academic courses as per the norms of Annauniversity.
f) For the incubation of the Company owned or co-owned by the student, evaluation is as per the incubation policy of the existing incubator in the Institute.
Intellectual Property Rights Protection and licensing
Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) denotes the specific legal rights of the inventors to hold and exercise Patents, Trademarks, Copyrights, Industrial Designs, etc. IPR aims to exclude third parties from exploiting the protected subject matter for a certain period of time (normally 20 years), without explicit authorization from the right holders. The IPR developed by the Institute / startup has to be protected as per the RMDEC IPR policy norms.a) When RMDEC facilities / funds are used substantially or when IPR is developed as a part of curriculum/ academic activity, IPR is to be owned by the RMDEC with inventor share as per IPR policy of RMDEC.
b) RMDEC can license the product / IPR to any startup by Faculty / Staff / Student. License fees could be either / or a mix of Upfront fees or one-time technology transfer fees or Royalty as a percentage of sale-price or Shares in the company.
c) All disputes if any will be as per IPR policy of RMDEC IPR cell or incubation center will only be a coordinator and facilitator for providing services to faculty, staff and students.
d) RMDEC decision-making body with respect to incubation / IPR / technology- licensing will be faculty and experts who have excelled in technology translation. The decision of the Management of the college will be final and binding.
Monitoring
The success of the Faculty, Staff and Students startup policy will depend upon the Knowledge exchange through collaboration and partnership. The implementation of the policy is the responsibility of RMDEC Principal and will provide support mechanisms and guidance for creating, managing and coordinating these relationships.a) Impact assessment of Institute’s entrepreneurial initiatives such as pre-incubation, incubation, entrepreneurship education should be performed regularly using well defined evaluation parameters such as Number of Workshops, conferences conducted / fab lab infrastructure / IPR policy / Review committee meeting both at Department and Institute level.
b) Number of startups created, support system provided at the institutional level and satisfaction of participants, new business relationships created by the institutes should be recorded as indicated in the following Table.
| Year | Number of Startup | Employment generated | Revenue | Surplus | IPR |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
The success of the policy should be in terms of social / sustainable economics / technological impact in the market based on the commercial output.
Review
This policy is subject to the review once in 3 years. This policy is as per the MHRD National Innovation and Startup policy 2019 for students and faculty and Tamil Nadu Government startup policy 2018-23 based on the change in these policies time to time.References
- National INNOVATION and STARTUP Policy 2019 for Students and Faculty - MHRD,GOI www.mhrd.gov.in / www.mic.gov.in
- Tamil Nadu Startup and Innovation Policy – 2018-23, Entrepreneurship Development and Innovation Institute, Chennai, www.editn.in
- Startup Policy – 2016, AICTE – New Delhi www.aicte-india.org
- Anna University Intellectual Property Policy, July 2016, CIPR, Anna University, Chennai.
- Anna University startup guidelines