Startup India portal links to I-STEM: 31,540 lab instruments at 4,044 institutions, Hyderabad’s CSIR labs among them

Startups recognised by the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) can now search for scientific instruments in government and academic laboratories from the Startup India portal, which was connected to the I-STEM research facilities map on Friday, 6 November. The Office of the Principal Scientific Adviser (PSA) and DPIIT switched on the link at a launch chaired by PSA Ajay Kumar Sood.

I-STEM, the Indian Science, Technology and Engineering Facilities Map, held 31,540 pieces of equipment belonging to 4,044 institutions on the day of the launch, the PSA’s office said. The two portals now talk to each other through an API. The Startup India side confirms a company’s DPIIT recognition automatically, which the release says will make it simpler for founders to sign up and find a testing bench or a prototyping facility. Single sign-on, letting startups reach I-STEM straight from the Startup India portal, is proposed for later phases.

Labs still decide who gets in

Finding a machine is not the same as booking it. Every request will still be judged and cleared by the host institution, which will look at technical fit, free slots, charges, safety rules and its own permissions, according to the release.

Sood said shared access could lower research costs for deep-tech firms and keep public money from buying the same expensive machines twice. Ateesh Kumar Singh, Additional Secretary at DPIIT, said startups would have to sink less of their own capital into equipment for testing and validating products.

Founders in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana have several large research centres close at hand on the I-STEM institution list. In Hyderabad it names CSIR’s Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology, Indian Institute of Chemical Technology and National Geophysical Research Institute, the International Advanced Research Centre for Powder Metallurgy and New Materials (ARCI), ISRO’s National Remote Sensing Centre, IIT Hyderabad and the University of Hyderabad. From Andhra Pradesh, IIT Tirupati, IISER Tirupati and Andhra University in Visakhapatnam are listed.

Startups and incubators can register through the startup section of the portal at istem.gov.in/startup, where the page asks them to register on I-STEM.