PACE (Promoting Academic Research Conversion to Enterprise)

What is PACE?

PACE; Promoting Academic Research Conversion to Enterprise: is a grant scheme of the Biotechnology Industry Research Assistance Council (BIRAC), the Department of Biotechnology's public sector enterprise. PACE addresses a specific gap: Indian academic laboratories produce a large volume of biotech research, but very little of it reaches the stage where a company can pick it up.

PACE therefore funds two consecutive steps. First, developing a proof of concept in the academic lab. Second, getting that proof of concept validated by an industrial partner, which is what makes a technology credible enough to license or take forward.

The two components

• Academic Innovation Research (AIR), supports academia to develop a proof of concept for a process or product, with or without an industry collaborator.
• Contract Research Scheme (CRS); supports validation of an academia-developed process or prototype by an industrial partner.

Thrust areas span devices and diagnostics, pharma and biopharmaceuticals, agriculture and secondary agriculture, industrial biotechnology, environmental biotechnology, veterinary sciences and aquaculture.

Who is eligible for PACE?

Institutions that can apply:

• An academic institute, university, NGO or research foundation, public or private, registered or accredited by a government body, UGC affiliation, AICTE, CSIR, DSIR or SIRO certification.
• National research laboratories with an established research support system.
• Applicants may apply individually, or jointly with an academic or industrial partner. Industry involvement is optional for AIR but mandatory for CRS.

Technical conditions for AIR applicants:

• Completion of at least one extramural funded project of minimum 3 years' duration in the same research area, funded by a government agency or industry.
• One publication indexed in Scopus or Web of Science as first or lead author, or a filed patent, in the proposed research area.
• Compulsory evidence of proof of principle and preliminary data; absence can disqualify the proposal outright.
• A stated plan for how the outcome will be taken forward with an industrial partner under CRS.
• If industry participates in an AIR proposal, the partnering company or LLP must be more than 5 years old since incorporation.

Technical conditions for CRS applicants:

• Evidence of proof of concept at minimum Technology Readiness Level 3 with validation-ready data.
• A commitment letter from the industrial partner to exercise first right to monetise the product or technology.
• Where the project follows an AIR grant, the same industrial partner should continue; any deviation must be justified with clarity on IP governance.

Conditions for the industrial partner:

• Incorporated under the Companies Act, 2013, with a minimum 51% of shares held by Indian citizens holding Indian passports. PIO and OCI holders do not count as Indian citizens for this purpose.
• Adequate in-house facilities to implement the project, assessed during a site visit, or incubation at a recognised incubation facility.

Who cannot apply:

• Individuals cannot apply. PACE has no personal benefit, no stipend for a citizen and no beneficiary list. The Principal Investigator must be a permanent member of the applicant institution, and money goes to the institution.
• Students and independent researchers are not eligible as primary applicants. Students working on biotech innovation should look at BIRAC's E-YUVA fellowships instead, covered separately on this site.
• Proposals based on basic or exploratory research, without a well-established proof of principle, or with no or low commercial potential, are not supported under AIR.
• Applicants who withdrew a proposal after Apex Committee approval, or whose project was foreclosed for irregularity, are debarred from the next 3 calls, roughly one year.
• Proposals with companies defaulting on repayment of a BIRAC loan or irregular on instalments are ineligible.
• A proposal built on in-licensed technology or IP from a recognised incubation facility is not allowed; the applicant must own the background IP.

What documents are required for PACE?

How to apply for PACE

1. Wait for an active call. BIRAC generally advertises about 3 calls a year in national dailies and biotechnology magazines, with intimation on the BIRAC and DBT websites. Academic user registration opens only while a call is active.
2. Log on to birac.nic.in and complete Institution User Registration if you are new. A system-generated password is emailed to the address given at registration and can be changed later.
3. Log in and open the PACE link under Programmes; the active call is highlighted.
4. Select AIR or CRS and open the proposal form for that call. Refer to the PACE User Guide on the website for field-level help.
5. Fill in the technical proposal — problem, proof of principle or concept, milestones, deliverables and the translational strategy, and the budget, keeping AIR within Rs 50 lakh total with non-recurring cost under 10%.
6. Upload the supporting documents, including the sanction order of the completed extramural project, the publication or patent filing, and the industrial partner's commitment letter for CRS.
7. Submit the proposal online before the call closes. Submission is online only; no offline route exists.
8. Take the proposal through review, peer review by an Area Review Panel, technical screening, presentation to the Technical Expert Committee, and where required a site visit. The TEC takes the final funding decision.

How much does PACE fund and for how long?

Academic Innovation Research (AIR)

• Total project cost must not exceed Rs 50 lakh.
• Non-recurring cost must not exceed 10% of the total cost.
• Duration is up to 24 months, which BIRAC's Technical Expert Committee may extend at its discretion depending on the nature of the study.
• Support is grant-in-aid.

Contract Research Scheme (CRS)

• No ceiling on funding, and no fixed time limit on the project.
• Grants go to both the academic and the industrial partner: to academia for in-house research forming part of PoC validation, and to the industry partner for the validation work itself.
• Non-recurring cost is not allowable for the collaborating company.

CRS also covers specific research services an academic group needs from industry; toxicology studies, gene sequencing, work requiring specialised industrial equipment, provided the outsourcing is clearly justified and the company's competence and facilities are demonstrated.

How proposals are evaluated

Evaluation is entirely online and runs through several levels: initial peer review by subject-specific Area Review Panels, technical screening, and presentation of technically sound proposals to the Technical Expert Committee of eminent scientists. Panels are organised by area; agriculture, healthcare, biomedical devices, bioenergy, bioinformatics, environmental biotechnology, formulation development, industrial products and processes, and new drug discovery.

Reviewers sign no-conflict and confidentiality certificates before getting access, and are typically given two weeks to score a proposal. The criteria are the technical strength of the proof of concept, clarity of the lead, potential to create a technology or product, national and social relevance, commercial or translational potential, and the investigator's credentials and team.

Intellectual property under PACE

Under AIR, IP rights may rest with the academia alone, or be shared jointly between academia and industry where the proof of concept is established with an industry partner, as agreed between the two.

Under CRS, IP rights reside with the academia, but the industry partner holds a first right of refusal for commercial exploitation of the new IP, accompanied by an undertaking that its business strategy includes possible commercialisation of the technology under validation.

Help and contacts

• BIRAC to 011-24389600 / 011-49968888, email birac.dbt@nic.in
• PACE scheme document and User Guide: birac.nic.in, PACE section
• Related BIRAC schemes on this site: BIG (Biotechnology Ignition Grant), SBIRI, BIPP, BioNEST and E-YUVA cover the other stages of the pipeline

No fee is charged for submitting a PACE proposal, and funding decisions are taken only by BIRAC's expert committees.