Promoting Academic Research Conversion to Enterprise (PACE)

PACE helps academic institutions turn important research into early-stage products and then supports industry partnerships to validate and take those innovations closer to real-world use.

The PACE (Promoting Academic Research Conversion to Enterprise) encourages academia to develop technology/product (up to PoC stage) of societal/national importance (under Academic Innovation Research or AIR), and its subsequent validation by an industrial partner (under Contract Research Scheme or CRS.

• For AIR: Academia (Public or Private Institute, University, NGO, or Research Foundation) with a well-established support system for research shall be the primary applicant. Collaboration with Industry/LLP is optional in this component.
• For CRS: Mandatory collaboration with Industry/LLP is needed. The Industry collaborator must have a minimum of 51% of the shares of the Company held by Indian Citizens holding Indian passport.

• PACE provides for BIRAC contribution of up to 100% of the project cost.
• Financial support under AIR: Total cost of the project must not exceed ₹50 lakh (non-recurring cost must not exceed 10% of the total cost)
• Financial support under CRS: Funding in the form of grant is provided to both academic as well as industrial partners. There is no ceiling to the funding under CRS.

Call for Applications are announced twice a year (1st April – 15th May; and 1st September – 15th October). Besides two regular calls, BIRAC may also announce need-based additional calls whose terms and conditions would be worked out separately and described in their respective RFPs.

Status as stated in the playbook (June 2026):
“Call for Applications are announced twice a year (1st April – 15th May; and 1st September – 15th October).”

• Website: birac.nic.in (opens in a new tab)
• Operational Guidelines: birac.nic.in (opens in a new tab)