Sri Lanka has an education system with a significant public investment, which provides all citizens equal access to school and university education irrespective of their financial background. As such, there is a system in place to recognize the best talents scattered around the country and provide them with the necessary higher education. The best students are enrolled into engineering faculties of state universities on competitive basis, and these students follow academic programmes of very high standards accredited by international accreditation agencies such as the Washington Accord.

It is noted that around 150 graduate and undergraduate projects are completed in the Faculty of Engineering, University of Peradeniya, each year. Most of these projects investigate burning issues of the society and propose novel technological solutions to bridge the gap between society and scientific Knowledge. Unfortunately, these novel solutions of high potential for commercialization, at the best, end up as prototypes or in most cases as project reports or research papers.

As there is no effective system in place in order to facilitate development of the innovative solutions beyond pursuits of individual academic goals, the potential contributions of the faculty for national development is being neglected. On the other hand, the country needs innovations and advanced technological applications for her development, and no doubt that the engineering faculties of the country need to shoulder this challenge.

It is at this background, “Engineering Technology Incubation Center (ETIC)” has been established in the Faculty of Engineering, University of Peradeniya to provide an ecosystem where the projects and research completed will be developed into products of economic value for the society and marketable.