Status of Research and Development in India

Given the rate of growth in investments, it would be safe to state that R&D in India is severely underdeveloped, at about 0.6% of GDP when compared with the largest R&D economies worldwide. A good R&D would foster innovation and economic growth; the best R&D would attempt to resolve an urgent societal problem. Hence, this article studies in detail the present scenario of R&D in India, its challenges, and the possible strategies to address these challenges.

About Status of R&D in India

• India’s expenditure on science and technology was measured by GERD and while it had tripled in ten years, the ratio stayed between just 0.6 and 0.7 per cent of the GDP.
• India’s investment in R&D, about 0.6 per cent of GDP, is far below other major countries such as USA with 2.8 per cent, China with 2.1 percent, Israel with 4.3 per cent, and Korea with 4.2 per cent.
• The Survey noted that in East Asian countries-and China, Japan, and Korea are those-big increases in R&D as a proportion of GDP have occurred as these countries got richer. India, by contrast, has experience only a very weak increase.
• At its present rate, India will very weakly hit the 1 per cent GERD-to-GDP like rich countries usually do.
• The country really needs to put some efforts into building the science and research scenario. Private sector investment in R&D has remained far behind public investment in the country.
• In most countries, the bulk of R&D is undertaken by the private sector. However, in India, the government is not only the prime source of funding for R&D but also one of the main users of funds provided for the same.

Encourage Investigator-Led Research

• India must slowly shift towards more support of investigator-driven research.
• Further steps into this direction were made in 2008 when the Science and Engineering Research Board (SERB), a statutory body of DST, was brought into existence,
• and since then, it has supported almost three-and-a-half thousand new research and development projects among individual scientists.
• It is but a promising start that needs to be expanded with more funds and innovative management mechanisms.

Increase Funding for Research

• The private sector must be incentivized to both do more R&D-Scientific research in India and also sponsor STEM research through CSR funds.
• The existing tax regime does promote R&D investments through the CSR route. However, this can be further expanded as to the kinds of R&D activities allowed.
• The government could provide opportunities yet with private sector interests to develop new routes for R&D funds.
• An initiative such as the 50:50 sharing with SERB of the cost of industry-oriented research under the Ucchatar Avishkar Yojana (UAY) serves as a useful example.
• State governments must recognize that they should invest in application research that is targeted at problems common to their economies and populations.
• That would strengthen state universities, while also providing desperately needed knowledge about crops, ecology, and species particular to a state.

Link National Labs to Universities and Create New Knowledge Eco-Systems

• Universities have abundance in students when it comes to needing faculty support, on the other hand, research institutes have plenty of faculty but little to none of bright young students full of energy and ideas.
• A closer relationship of the above two with respect to specific geographical and spatial settings would help nurture research in the areas representing those fields of science in which the national research centers are proficient.
• Together they can network with commercial sectors, thereby helping to establish industrial clusters in the areas drawing upon these research strengths, laying the foundations of innovation-driven “smart cities.”

Mission Driven Approach to R&D

India indeed has the worldwide potential to unilaterally be at the helm in a number of domains, provided it is willing to invest. This will have to pick levers in certain very specific areas. These possible missions have been chosen on account of their strategic significance and societal impact:

• National Mission on Dark Matter: India must have at least one mission direction towards the basic sciences. India is one of the leading countries in high energy physics and mathematics. Payoffs from this research will have implications on space missions.
• National Mission on Genomics: Genomic research is really at the core of life sciences of the future. India already has a fairly strong base of life science research institutes which together can really make a big contribution to this field.
• National Mission on Energy Storage Systems: Renewable energy is the future, and India has gone ahead in a big way to invest in renewable energy. With heavy investments in energy-storage systems, India will be able to position itself as a leader in manufacturing energy-storage systems. For India, this will be especially helpful to provide round-the-clock electricity to villages using off-grid renewable energy systems.
• National Mission in Mathematics: A National Mission of Mathematics will vastly improve mathematics education at all levels of higher education, seek to establish five institutes of mathematical sciences in existing institutions, hold annual district, State and National Math Olympiads with sizeable scholarships for all winners with the overall aim of rapidly increasing human capital and research profile in the area of mathematics in the Indian context within a decade.
• National Mission on Cyber-Physical Systems: A cyber-physical system (CPS) involves machine-based communication, analysis, inference, decision, action, and control in the presence of the natural world (the so-called “Physical” aspect). These constitute the building blocks for the future industry that will bring in new challenges and opportunities.
• National Mission on Agriculture: The purpose of a national mission could well be to help overcome weaknesses in the existing institutions of agricultural research and technology.

Greater Public Engagement of Science and Research Establishments

• If science is to garner greater support from society, it will require scientists to engage more vigorously with society.
• Much of science is – and should be – a public good, and hence that will always require substantial public funding.
• Scientists need to create broad public support for their work and not treat it as an entitlement, given the many claims on the public purse. And if they do that, they will find a receptive and supportive public.

Conclusion

It is in making India’s R&D status into a strong growth engine that cooperation is required to improve funding, foster investigator-led research, and create a collaborative ecosystem between universities and national laboratories. India’s potential to emerge as a top leader in global scientific R&D can be unlocked by way of strategic national missions and greater public engagement. The path forward must include a new mindset that looks at R&D not as a cost but as a stock for the future of the nation in which science remains a public good for everyone.

FAQs: Research and Development in India

GS - 3