Harvard University Establishes Research Alliance with Tata Companies

Harvard University recently established a six-year, $8.4 million research alliance with a group of Tata companies, which includes Tata Sons, Tata Communications, Tata Steel, and Jaguar Land Rover. This new initiative, the first of its kind, builds on connections between the university’s business and engineering schools for a new leadership development component to the university’s research partnerships.

This collaboration, coordinated by Harvard’s Office of Technology Development, will support cutting-edge research in labs across the university and will provide professional development programs to visiting technology business leaders, a combination designed to position Harvard’s research innovations to achieve the greatest benefit to the worldwide public. Harvard Provost Alan M. Garber notes, “This initiative will harness the power of research that crosses traditional academic boundaries, leading to more rapid discovery and the development of new products and services that address real-world problems.”

This new agreement between Harvard and Tata creates a future generation of entrepreneurial leaders by establishing a Tata Fellowship Program at Harvard Business School (HBS). For each research project the alliance funds, an experienced Tata employee will have the opportunity to spend up to one year in residency in the Harvard Executive Education Program. Tata Fellows, who will be nominated by Tata senior leadership, will have an assigned HBS faculty mentor to guide them and offer insights. In addition, they will collaborate with a Harvard research team to develop a commercialization plan for technologies arising from the funded projects.

Garber comments, “Harvard has highly productive strategic alliances with several industry partners that support research on campus, in disciplines such as biomedical science, materials science, and chemistry. This initiative brings a new dimension that will include new links with Harvard Business School. With its strengths in both science and business, Harvard is well positioned to succeed with this creative and integrated program.”

The initial focus of the research alliance will be on robotics, wearable technologies, and the “Internet of Things” (IoT).

For more information about this new alliance, visit the Harvard Web site.

For additional information on Harvard Business School Executive Education programs, visit them on the Web.

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