Kerala is one of India's most progressive States in terms of social welfare and quality of life. The Government of Kerala which has initiated a number of schemes in various other sectors has recently adopted a firm stance in improving its higher education sector with prime focus on research. The State has consciously set aside considerable amount of funds in the recent budget for the enrichment of research and learning in the higher education sector.
In this juncture, this centre is aimed to bridge a conspicuous gap existing between the research produced by the academics in the academic institutions and problems in the society warranting intelligent, sustainable and environmental friendly technological solutions.
There are a good number of central and state funded research institutes in almost all the districts of the state. Apart from these, there are several small and medium scale industries in many of the districts. The local issues of regions are handled by the local self-governments. Currently these agencies/institutes and the academia of the state function as two verticals with minimum interaction between them. This scenario needs urgent intervention whereby a centre can be established which acts as a link, facilitating a mutual give and take between research institutes, industries, LSGDs and Government missions on one side and academic institutions particularly the state run 9 Government Engineering Colleges of the state, on the other. This is also expected to attract researchers to do more meaningful research, thereby spearheading their objectives to reach out to the society. It is in this context that CORaL can play a pivotal role.
There are 11 State Government funded research centres and 3 PPP mod ecentres functioning in the 9 Government Engineering Colleges in the state. All the colleges are approved research centres of APJ Abdul Kalam Technological University. CET, GECT and RIT are also minor QIP (Quality Improvement Program) centres approved by AICTE. There are approximately 200 approved research supervisors out of the total faculty strength of about 900 with about 350 research scholars under them. The colleges have an undergraduate student strength of 9000 and postgraduate student strength of 1000 approximately.
There are a number of research institutes in our state such as agricultural research institute, medical research institutes, coir and bamboo, to name a few, which can enhance their outreach to society through collaborative research. LSGDs are bodies which involve in various issues of the society at the grass root level. These bodies will definitely be benefitted if the academia intervenes to propose and implement engineering solutions to problems of that nature. The 4 missions of the Government of Kerala–Haritha Keralam, Ardram, Life and Education Mission–too might welcome active association of the academia in their research problems.
Seamless interaction between the academia of the state with other stakeholders which includes research institutes, industries, LSGDs and Government Missions in the state paving way to quick, intelligent, sustainable and environment friendly technological solutions to problems/issues in the society