Explore partnerships with research labs for country’s accelerated economic development: former ISRO head to business managers

Former ISRO Chairman emphasizes the importance of partnerships between businesses and research institutions for economic growth and innovation.

Former Chairman of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) S. Somanath on Friday (April 4, 2025) underscored the significance of businesses exploring partnerships with research institutions and laboratories for accelerated economic development of the country.

“Pick out those small things happening [in research labs] and find out how this can connect to your innovation and product development. This will transform the nation in a big manner,” Mr. Somanath, who is Vikram Sarabhai Distinguished Professor at ISRO, told graduating students at the Indian School of Business (ISB) in Hyderabad on Friday (April 4, 2025).

Stronger research houses connected with the stronger business houses will contribute to the economic power of a country, he said, adding for India to scale up across various sectors, connecting research with product and innovation is important. Real growth will happen only with investment in technology. Real business happens when research and development (R&D) work in laboratories goes into building new ideas and possibilities in industry. “This is something lacking in the country,” he said, pointing out the space sector was an exception as several companies have shaped products for the space mission from the research undertaken by government establishments.

Mr. Somanath said electronics was one of the sectors where real development effort has not happened despite India possessing software development and design capability. Artificial Intelligence is another domain where the country’s work was yet to come to the fore. Some countries have been able to bring out AI tools at much lower cost. “Why are we not able to build our core competence in AI despite [having] strength in software,?” he asked. Likewise, efforts should be undertaken to develop more vaccines on the lines of the one developed in the country for COVID 19.

On the potential in the space sector, he said though India has come to be noticed world over for its work, the country’s share in the $500 billion global space economy stood at only 2%. There is need to increase this to 10%, Mr. Somanath said.

India can emerge as a major global manufacturing hub for space systems such as satellites and rockets over next 10 years on the back of cost benefits. Compared to the West, the cost of complex engineering works in the country is much lower, he said, urging the business managers to cultivate certain professional and personal attributes, be passionate about the work and develop determination to handle failure.

At the graduation ceremony, 563 students from the PGP Class of 2025 (Hyderabad campus), along with three scholars from the Fellow Programme in Management (FPM) and 16 scholars from the Executive Fellow Programme in Management (EFPM) received certificates.