SKUAST Kashmir in pursuit of its mission of transforming itself as the “Innovation lead Farm University” has won two more Biotechnology Ignition Grant (BIG) of Rs 50 Lakh each.

The list of the awardees of BIG grant as seed money for validation of Proof of Concept for startups was released by Biotechnology Industry Research Assistance Council in January 2024.

The BIG Birac awardees for 2024 include two SKUAST K young minds and researchers namely Dr Sahar Saleem Bhat and Mr.Irfan Gul. With these two awardees, SKUAST-K has emerged as the No. 1 State Agriculture University in the country and in Union territory of Jammu and Kashmir to have earned highest number of BIRAC-BIG grants (13 in Total).

This winning streak is result of an effective ecosystem for innovators &startups created by SKUAST K. The different interlinked components of this ecosystem include:

• An incubation Centre with brand name of SKUAST-K Innovation, Incubation and Entrepreneurship centre (SKIIEC).
• a vibrant innovation &startup policy for faculty & students (SISP)
• a technology Business Incubator of Department of Science & Technology New Delhi.
• 10 state of art in house dedicated R&D Labs/ Centre of Excellences
• artificial Intelligence & machine learning Centre (AIML)

Over a short period of few years, SKUASTK’s vibrant ecosystem for innovators & incubates has yielded significant results. These include 27 registered Start-ups of Students and Faculty and 15 patents, a number of commercialised technologies.

Vice Chancellor, SKUAST-K, Prof.Nazir Ahmad Ganai while congratulating the two young researchers  impressed upon them to take advantage of the support system of the university at its Incubation Centre (SKIIEC) for commercialization of the technologies. Vice Chancellor also complimented SKIIE Centre and all mentors associated with incubation centre particularly the mentors of two awardees for their significant contributionin creating a vibrant ecosystem of Innovation, Incubation &Startup.