Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Science and Technology Dr. Jitendra Singh arrived in Bengaluru on Saturday, 13 June 2026 for the two-day RISE (Research, Industry, StartUp, Entrepreneurship) Conclave 2026, a national platform designed to strengthen linkages between public research institutions, industry, and the startup ecosystem.

The minister was received by a high-profile scientific leadership that included Dr. N. Kalaiselvi, Director General of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR); Dr. V. Narayanan, Chairman of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO); Dr. Abhay A. Pashilkar, Director of CSIR-NAL; and Dr. Giridhar Parvatam, Director of CSIR-CFTRI, along with senior faculty, officials and distinguished dignitaries.

Context

The RISE Conclave 2026 brings together stakeholders from research institutions, industry, and the startup community under a single roof in Bengaluru — a city that serves as India's foremost hub for aerospace, biotechnology, and information technology. The conclave's four-pillar framework — Research, Industry, StartUp, and Entrepreneurship — reflects a deliberate policy intent to close the gap between laboratory discoveries and market-ready products.

The presence of both CSIR, India's largest public R&D network, and ISRO, the national space agency, at the welcoming committee signals the breadth of institutional participation expected at the two-day deliberations.

Policy Backdrop

The conclave sits within a decade-long policy architecture aimed at commercialising publicly funded science. The Startup India initiative (2016) introduced tax incentives and a fund-of-funds to connect research outputs with early-stage ventures, while the Atal Innovation Mission, also launched in 2016 under NITI Aayog, expanded incubators and tinkering labs to scale technologies emerging from CSIR and ISRO laboratories.

The Science, Technology and Innovation Policy 2013 had earlier set targets for raising gross expenditure on R&D and deepening public-private partnerships — goals that successive governments have continued to pursue through platforms such as RISE. The broader Atmanirbhar Bharat agenda has further elevated technology transfer and startup scaling in strategic sectors as national priorities.

Stakeholders and Impact

CSIR operates laboratories across disciplines spanning aerospace, food technology, and materials science, making its participation central to any initiative linking research with industry. CSIR-NAL (National Aerospace Laboratories) and CSIR-CFTRI (Central Food Technological Research Institute) — both represented at the welcome — are among the network's most commercially active units.

ISRO's involvement adds a strategic dimension, given the organisation's expanding role in enabling private-sector participation in space through the Indian National Space Promotion and Authorisation Centre (IN-SPACe). For startups and entrepreneurs attending the conclave, direct engagement with leadership from both bodies represents a significant access opportunity.

What's Next

The two-day format of the RISE Conclave 2026 leaves room for substantive announcements. Observers will watch for follow-up directives on joint CSIR-ISRO incubation programmes or updated technology transfer guidelines that could emerge from the deliberations. Any new frameworks linking public R&D outputs to startup funding pipelines would mark a concrete policy outcome from the event.

As India continues to position itself as a global science and innovation destination, conclaves of this kind increasingly serve as both policy-signalling moments and operational platforms for the research-to-market pipeline that the government has prioritised across multiple budget cycles.