Bengaluru: India’s atomic, space and defence labs will be tasked with identifying projects that they can work on and build jointly with private companies and academia to strengthen the local innovation ecosystem, according to the draft science and technology policy<\/a> released on Thursday.

The potential expertise of academics and industry will be tapped to undertake design and developments with necessary non-disclosure agreements for the benefit of the country, it said.

“This is the general philosophy of the government to encourage industry and R&D labs, academia working together. The strategic lab itself cannot be aatmanirbhar (self-reliant) if they don’t have the connection with the outside world,” Department of Science and Technology<\/a> secretary Ashutosh Sharma<\/a> told ET. “Some things are done well by the industry, some things by the (labs), the knowledge is not there in only one place.”

Projects by India’s strategic labs are often delayed or exceed budgets due to the focus on building technology and systems in-house. They also struggle to transfer knowhow to private companies because of their lack of expertise in the manufacturing process.

Sharma cited the example of how, during Covid-19, government labs, industry and academia collaborated to make a world-class ventilator in three months.