About

Bangladesh aspires to attain high-income status, making it imperative to enhance competitiveness, expand the economy, and elevate overall performance. While the economy has made notable progress over the past 14 years, it has largely relied on labor-intensive industries, leaving considerable potential for value addition untapped.

In the era of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, achieving technological self-sufficiency is crucial. To build a developed and prosperous Bangladesh, it is essential to address challenges through indigenous innovation and to modernize government services and industries using homegrown technology. The EDGE Project is at the forefront of this transformation, driving various research and innovation initiatives that engage the government, academia, and industry. A central goal of the EDGE Project is to strengthen the innovation ecosystem through the establishment of Research and Innovation Centers (RICs).

This initiative has shown significant promise in enhancing competitiveness by capitalizing on digital opportunities, leveraging 4IR technologies, investing in science and technology research, fostering innovation, and linking higher education to economic growth.

The prevailing deficiencies in various domains, including patent filing, research output, publication of research papers, innovation commercialization, and research and development (R&D) investment—amounting to less than 1 percent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP)—underscore the imperative for heightened focus on these drivers of growth. To address these shortcomings, the government has outlined plans to establish ten university-based Research and Innovation Centers (RICs) through the EDGE Project within the ICT Division. These RICs aim to conduct research and innovation projects, fostering collaboration among industry stakeholders, academia, and the government. The RICs, as conceived under the EDGE project, are strategically designed to bridge existing gaps and help develop the national economy.

In any economy, development relies on the collaboration of three primary entities: industry, academia, and government. The design of Research and Innovation Centers (RICs) is specifically aimed at connecting these three partners. The government plays a key role in establishing the RIC as a platform to support research and innovation. Academia hosts the RIC, conducting research that can lead to new innovations or products. The industry, in turn, supports commercialization and marketing initiatives.

Subsequent sections delve into the intricacies of how RICs are structured to mitigate the identified deficiencies, outlining RIC activities, the underlying approach, operational framework, and other pertinent aspects.

RIC stands for Research and Innovation Center.These are established under the EDGE project in public universities to conduct hands-on activities and experimentation to improve digital skills of students, various Research and Innovation initiatives to build research and innovation capacities aimed at solving real-life problems for citizens, government, and industries and develop emerging technology strategies and plans for research and innovation (R&I).