The primary objective of this strategic meeting was to establish a collaboration where BITS Pilani will support UoL in drafting and developing its institutional Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) policy and integrated commercialization frameworks.

During the session, Dr. Mehboob Ali (Coordinator, TEC UoL) noted that while the University of Ladakh is rapidly expanding its academic and research footprint, it currently lacks a finalized institutional IPR policy. To address this, UoL requested a draft reference framework from the BITS Pilani team. Professor Deepak Chitkara and Mr. Vijay Singh extended full support, offering to share BITS Pilani's established policies, operational procedures, and institutional insights to help replicate or adapt a version for UoL.

To ensure long-term alignment and avoid operational conflicts, the joint collaboration will focus on building an interconnected policy ecosystem covering five core areas:

• ✓ University IPR Policy
• ✓ University Startup Policy
• ✓ University Student / Faculty Entrepreneurship Policy
• ✓ University Consultancy Policy
• ✓ University Industry-sponsored Research Policy

National Compliance with Regional Focus

As recommended by Mr. Rajneesh Kumar (Head, TTO, BITS Pilani), the drafted architecture will strictly comply with the National Innovation and Startup Policy (NISP) guidelines by AICTE. Crucially, the framework will also embed core regional dynamics, specifically factoring in Geographical Indication (GI) considerations unique to the Ladakh ecosystem.

Additionally, the university-level framework will be closely synced with a comprehensive UT-level Startup Policy draft. This UT policy, reported by Dr. Jigmet Stobdan, is currently undergoing active evaluation by the UT administration and includes explicit financial incentives such as the reimbursement of patent filing fees.