You are Dr. Aarav Mehta, Director of the Vindhya Institute for Applied Sciences. Choose wrong and you either forfeit the discovery's value or fracture the institute's scientific identity and legitimacy.
Vindhya's materials lab has produced a patentable low-cost water-purification membrane with clear commercial promise. The institute is publicly funded, prestigious for basic science, and staffed by researchers whose identity centers on scholarship and publication, not business. Government stakeholders want visible economic impact and technology transfer; industry partners are circling; and a few star scientists are tempted to spin out a company. But the institution has weak commercialization infrastructure, unclear IP-sharing norms, and a faculty culture that views commercial work as a threat to scientific integrity and academic legitimacy.