New Delhi, Jan 27 : Secretary (Defence Production) Sanjeev Kumar on Monday called for aligning academic research with the needs of defence production and evolving structured mechanisms for sustained engagement.

He shared his views during a virtual interaction with Directors/Deans of leading academic institutions, including IITs, NITs and IISc, along with DPSUs and other stakeholders in New Delhi.

The discussions included fostering long-term student-driven research in academic institutions, strengthening Academia-DPSU collaboration, moving beyond short-term project-based collaboration, and institutionalising structured initiatives for providing insights into futuristic technologies.

This would help in facilitating effective translation of academic research into deployable defence capabilities, he said.

The Secretary stated that such interactions would provide the Ministry with deeper insights into academic research capabilities and perspectives.

He urged the academia to adopt a consultative format with the Department of Defence Production to enable long-term national capability development.

The interaction was attended by Director, IIT Madras, Prof. V. Kamakoti; Director, IIT Kanpur, Prof. M. Agrawal; Director, IIT Bombay, Prof. S. Kedare; Director, IIT Hyderabad, Prof. B.S. Murthy; Director, IIT Gandhinagar; Prof R. Moona; Director, IIT Tirupati; Prof K. N. Satyanarayana; Director, IIT Guwahati; Prof D. Jalihal; and other senior professors from 24 premier academic institutions of the country.

The interaction reaffirmed the Ministry of Defenceâ??s commitment to leveraging the strengths of the nationâ??s premier academic institutions in building a resilient, self-reliant, and future-ready defence technology ecosystem in collaboration with industry partners.

Earlier, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh underscored the importance of reducing the time between research and prototype, prototype to testing, and testing to deployment. The Defence Minister asserted that â??timely induction in the Armed Forces should be the biggest parameter of our performance.â??

Commending DRDOâ??s role in achieving self-reliance, Rajnath Singh said that Operation Sindoor demonstrated that indigenous systems are strengthening Indiaâ??s operational readiness.

Addressing DRDOâ??s Best Performing Scientists and Technical Persons, who witnessed the 77th Republic Day Parade as Special Guests, Rajnath Singh stated that self-reliance has become a national mindset under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

He said that due to the governmentâ??s self-reliance efforts, defence exports, which were less than Rs 1,000 crore in 2014, have increased to a record Rs 24,000 crore.

/IANS