Promoting interdisciplinary research with a multidisciplinary approach both by the University and the Government will elevate research outcomes and their translation to innovation.  With the triad partnership of the University / Government / Industry, the conversion of research outcomes into technology or to a product would be facilitated further which brings in the component of knowledge complementation, in addition to addressing the funding issues.  Thus, research and innovation are based on multiple parameters where the role of the researcher, mentor, institute, infrastructure, funding, industry involvement, and government are imminent.

B.oth Research and Innovation (R & I) are important for any university, whether it is a private, state, or federal; whether the research is in science, arts, commerce, engineering, or technology; whether it is at the domestic level, school level or at higher education level or through the career of a young professional or a senior research professional. Most often the R & I activities are conceived as the game of the researcher alone, forgetting about the role played by all these and several other related elements.  In the present-day context, unfortunately, tasks of R & I are often equated to a routine job, as a result, one could neither succeed in research nor take it to the next level of innovation.  Several parameters, such as the researchers, the mentors, the platform set, the environment created by the university/organization, academic and industrial collaborations, etc., play roles with different weights, though one would think of it as the game of a researcher alone.  All this can be regarded as a primary cause.  The secondary level of impact on the issues of  R & I comes from the projections and the regulatory aspects, including the financial ones, of the governing bodies at the level of the University, the state, and the nation.  Little, but significant influence comes even from the neighboring universities, in the vicinity, which compete on similar lines, and this can be considered at a tertiary level.  Among these three levels of concern, the primary concern can be certainly addressed and set right by taking appropriate measures.  Such a process would set the R & I culture alright, even if the secondary and tertiary concerns are not considered to any great extent. Therefore, both the ‘R’ and ‘I’ are to be protected and nurtured if the University were to attain a respectable position in the ranking assigned by the national and international agencies.  Nurturing will also bless the university to attain a commanding situation since R & I would potentially be transformed into technology when executed in its true spirit.
 An ideal researcher is an important and indispensable individual whose role is beyond comprehension because the researcher should understand the task and (re)define it, analyze it thoroughly, associate it with what is known, propose what needs to be done, execute it as desired and be able to interpret the outcome of the execution, and enrich the knowledge with findings, and look for its translation into any kind of application for the benefit of mankind.  The researcher will be able to do justice to R & I, not just by spending time but through dedicated involvement with both the mental and the physical actions.  A true researcher will take total control of his/her research area, rather than confining himself to their research problem alone and churn out the data.  When the role of the researcher is approached from all these angles, with added support from the mentor, the outcome of such research can be taken to greater levels and would eventually lead to its translational domain.  The domain includes product and or technology development, provided the intermediate steps are taken care of accordingly with the involvement of other researchers who would bridge the gaps.  Thus, effective collaborations would add to this in promoting R & I to the application levels.
 When one comes to a doctoral program the research domain into which one enters is still broad, but the topic chosen for a Ph.D. is confined to a narrow one.  Unfortunately, most of the present-day doctoral students forget their academic past and adjust themselves comfortably to a very narrow knowledge domain losing even their communicating abilities about the broader part of their research and related areas.  This lands the researchers at their Ph.D. level in trouble as they cannot think of what to do, how to, where to, and when to enter for help and or collaborations to bring the best output from their R & I efforts.  This will also put the researcher at a disadvantage when one goes for academics as a profession after earning their doctoral degree, where the faculty is expected to tackle several aspects simultaneously, including, teaching, mentoring and fundraising, execution & management of research besides taking care of academic administration. 
 One another commonly faced crisis and a root cause for failure to generate effective R & I output is the selection of the research problem and ensuring its smooth progress in time.  The relevant issues are well within the purview of the researcher and the mentor, and both were expected to address these at an early stage and rectify.  The infrastructure is another important parameter when the research is more focused on innovation and developing technologies, wherein the usage of advanced and expensive equipment and its management are unavoidable, meaning that the research turns out to be expensive and time-consuming.  Well-trained personnel and or staff is important in using advanced equipment for taking such research forward and in the direction to yield useful outcome.  In some places, the visionary management is smart enough to extend the services of such advanced infrastructure to outside researchers, so that the funds thus generated can be fed back for its maintenance, and thereby both the local and regional research can be fostered without being bottle-necked by the recurring expenditure.  
 While there are several state-, federal- and industry-based funding agencies, funding from the university is vital to build a platform for executing a good research work culture and to boost the performance of any researcher at the beginning of their career.  All this will help the researcher to stand on their feet and start performing.  While the university would provide basic infrastructure and seed grants, the researcher soon needs to approach the funding agencies and raise funds for sustaining good research on a long-term basis.  As already addressed, a high-end infrastructure is required to translate the impact of the research into a useful product, and such infrastructure is generally granted by very few funding agencies as centers of excellence (CoE).  The bid for CoEs could come from several researchers across different disciplines from the same university or across different universities jointly to enhance the chances for its establishment. 
 The local administration of the university, which takes the policy decisions from time to time, would play an important role in encouraging the researcher as well in the growth of impactful research.  An important component of the University’s academic administration is to recognize, reward, and retain the best talent, whether it is the researchers, the technical staff, or even the mentors/faculty.  This is the job of the university for which it will receive compounded returns.  The University should embark on building a platform suitable for performing world-class research, wherein interdisciplinary research is encouraged.  This will be further augmented when the research is addressed from multiple disciplines and will raise the standards of the research outcome that would adorn the University with a better international ranking.  It will further contribute to making use of the research outcome in its application domain through innovation. 
 To support high-end research, the state and federal governments should float special drive schemes to fund the centers and encourage competitive spirit among the universities to grow with complimenting qualities.  This will create a win–win situation and the nation could boast its prime research and innovation and plunge into developing viable technologies for the country to survive in the modern era.  While there are several such initiatives already in place, there is a dire need to tune up the quantum of such special drives further, to cater its advantages to a larger section of researchers in establishing their R & I more focused.  Such focused efforts will lead to building centers of excellence (CoE) in various regions of the country and that will boost modern science and technology research and innovation across the country.    
 At present there is a huge gap between ‘R’ and ‘I’, in the context of India, though the statistics indicate high hopes for its growth.  To bridge this gap, the basic research (research by the ‘scientists’) should be constructively coupled with the engineering research, that means, the research should be highly interdisciplinary with the inclusion of multiple disciplines, so that the innovations can be boosted, and the outcome would result in technology.  The raw material for the innovation is the outcome of basic research.  We have plenty of that, and what we need are policies that promote interdisciplinary research with a multidisciplinary approach both under the university environment and by the governmental policies at the national level.  Though the gap can be bridged in this manner, the translation of innovation into its fruit requires the involvement of an industry, which would eventually drive it to technology and or to production.  The industry’s financial involvement in Indian R & I is less than one-third of what used to be invested in other Asian countries like Israel, South Korea, and Japan.  A lot more involvement of Industry in Indian R & I is essential to boost the conversion of basic research into a product.
Thus, the whole scenario of R & I can be viewed as trilateral where the mutual interactions between the University, Government, and Industry will strengthen R & I and drive it to its innovation by producing a technology and or a product.  Such trilateral interactions contribute to knowledge complementation besides addressing the funding issues and go in line with that proposed by the National Research Foundation (NRF), an organization established by the Government of India in similar lines to that exists in the US, known as the National Science Foundation.   The platform created by the central government, viz., NRF gives great hope and opportunity for India’s R & I to shift the equilibrium towards the ‘I’ and thereby place India in a better position on the Global Index that speaks about the country’s technological advancement.