RK University has been providing a competent ecosystem to students and its stakeholders since its inception by undertaking various activities to promote Research, Innovation and Entrepreneurship. In order to provide holistic support to all stakeholders, we have started an incubator- ‘K S Patel Centre for Entrepreneurship (KSPCFE)’. It has been bestowed the title of nodal Centre for Start-ups and Innovation schemes by the Government of Gujarat and facilitates enterprise development in the Saurashtra region by extending mentoring, training, laboratory support and funding.

Start-up is one of the prime focus areas of Government of India and policies and structures are being put in place to accelerate innovations and start-ups creation to capitalize on the demographic dividend that India has accrued and the resultant robustness of the risk-taking propensity. India has built up technical competence and expertise for relevant frugal innovations. That India could emerge as a start-up Hub in the region is the probability being visualized.

In 2019, on December 16th and 17th, RK University Rajkot jointly with start-up Cell Gujarat has organized ICOSTART 2019 - in which workshops by INTUIT and Ulster University, UK were deliberated for the participants. RK University succeeded in bringing together researchers, innovators, start-ups’ and investors in an endeavour to precipitate a robust ecosystem and to put Rajkot on the global Innovation & start up map. The conference was co-organized along with Western Sydney University, Australia in partnership with International Centre for Technology and Entrepreneurship-iCreate and 100X VC- a SEBI monitored seed funds from Mumbai and was supported by Industries Commissionerate, Govt. of Gujarat, GUJCOST, SSIP- Govt. of Gujarat. Over 300 people participated in the conference. Besides India the conference attracted speakers and participants from Australia, Bulgaria, Philippines, Ireland, Sri Lanka and China. The e-abstract book was launched for participants during the inaugural ceremony. The conference had received 129 abstracts of research papers and 42 start-ups for pitching. Oral presentation of research papers of seven different field i.e., Innovation, Health, Pharmaceutical, Engineering, Computer Science, Science and 2 management tracks were conducted successfully in parallel sessions on the 2nd day. The news about the conference was taken up by leading newspapers who published and popularized the event through their articles. The participants were felicitated by best oral presentation and best start up. There were sixteen best paper presentation awards given away and four start-ups were adjudged best start-ups.

Continuing with the legacy and the temperament of flagship event ICOSTART, RK University again would like to host this two-day International Research Conference and Summit on Innovations, Startups and Investments (ICOSTART-22), with capacity building workshops for startup founders as well as a pitching session and networking event for investors is planned on November 18-19, 2022.The conference would explore nuances of start-up led economic development/ acceleration in one of the tracks, frugal Innovation for Start-ups’ in another track and raising low cost funds in yet another track, whereas the summit would offer a platform to showcase innovations of the start-ups’ and perhaps acquire some visibility in the relevant publics and attract investment and acquire relevant skills/ knowledge in the concurrent workshops.