The Ministry of Food Processing Industries, Government of India and The Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce & Industry (FICCI) are working towards creating a common platform for a more collaborative research effort across the country. The initiative is aimed to strengthen Industry-Academia interface which will further augment the research and development in the country. In the form of a dedicated web portal, the idea is to bridge this gap through sharing of knowledge about various research activities being conducted in various institutes, which will act as a repository of research. This space shall also host industry's research aspiration and will facilitate the collaborative research amongst various stakeholders. It will also try to coordinate the R&D efforts being made at multiple locations and by multiple agencies across the country.

Recently there has been much talk going on the issue of food security and it is believed that the food processing sector can play a crucial role towards achieving it. However, according to a recent FICCI survey, R&D was found to be one of the major bottlenecks in the way of Food Processing Sector realising its full potential.

Strong Industry-Academia linkage has remained the driving force behind the success of businesses abroad; however in India there is a need to further strengthen it. There is a lot of research activity happening in our country's leading institutes but somehow the industry is not able to take full benefit of it. On the other hand, industry which is keen to take up collaborative research with such institutes is largely not able to do so, as there is no single link to facilitate on both the above issues.