Why in news?

• The Centre announced another annual ranking of higher educational institutions, based on how they fare in terms of innovation.

MHRD Innovation Cell (MIC)

• Innovation cell is MHRD’s initiative established at AICTE with a purpose to systematically foster the culture of Innovation in all Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) across the country.
• The primary mandate of Innovation Cell is to encourage, inspire and nurture young students by exposing them to new ideas and processes resulting in innovative activities in their formative years fostered through Network of Innovation clubs in Higher Educational Institutions.

Atal Ranking of Institutions on Innovation Achievements (ARIIA)

• For India to emerge as a global innovation hub, the youth of our country, especially in higher education institutions (HEIs) need to play a crucial role to create a sustainable innovation ecosystem.
• Hence, ideally all HEIs should have a comprehensive and functional mechanism to convert research into innovations.
• This ecosystem will encourage, inspire and nurture young students by exposing them to new ideas and processes resulting in innovative activities in their formative years.
• To ensure that Innovation is primary fulcrum of all HEIs, Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD), Govt. of India is introducing ‘Atal Ranking of Institutions on Innovation Achievements (ARIIA)’ to systematically rank education institutions and universities primarily on innovation related indicators.
• ARIIA considers all major indicators which are commonly used globally to rank most innovative education institutions/ universities in the world.
• ARIIA ranking will certainly inspire Indian institutions to reorient their mind-set and build ecosystems to encourage high quality research, innovation and entrepreneurship.
• More than quantity, ARIIA will focus on quality of innovations and will try to measure the real impact created by these innovations nationally and internationally.
• Moreover, ARIIA will set tone and direction for institutions for future development for making them globally competitive and in forefront of innovation