Research and Development in India

Published on 28 Jan 2025

India’s investment in research and development (R&D) is only around 0.7% of GDP, which is much lower than other emerging economies of Asia. Moreover, the government undertakes 60% of R&D expenditures, unlike other nations where private enterprise is the primary driver. 

Need To Focus on R&D 

• Productivity and economic growth: R&D helps in development of new technologies, or improving the efficiency of existing processes, thus contributing to increased productivity and growth.

• Example: Design and fabrication of Autonomous Passenger Drone by IIT Hyderabad can drive growth in Transport Sector 

• Low-cost indigenous solutions: R&D is desired in order to create tailor made solutions for the Indian population; such solutions that are cost effective and easily accessible to the poor sections. 

• Example: Jaipur Foot technology.

• Reducing Imports: India spends considerable money for importing high end technologies from countries like the U.S, South Korea etc. which raises the import bill and increases fiscal deficit.

• Example: Light Combat Aircraft R&D program enabled India to replace Mig-21 fighters with indigenous HAL Tejas.

• Tackling Emergencies: The Covid 19 pandemic was duly tackled by India as it already had a strong base of low-cost vaccine manufacturing.

• Example: Covaxin was developed indigenously in India through the partnership of ICMR and National Institute of Virology with Bharat Biotech, a private sector corporation.

• National Security: Relying on foreign countries for domestic R&D needs increases vulnerability of modern digital economies to cyber-attacks and espionage.

• Example: Experts have raised caution against the use of semiconductor chips imported from China. R&D in Semiconductors can help reduce this dependency. 

• To tackle Climate Change: India’s NDCs at Paris Summit demands extensive R&D in the green technologies to enable a smooth transition to zero carbon World. 

• Example: Eco-friendly technologies to reduce GHG emissions like building low-cost solar panels, EVs, lithium batteries etc

Challenges faced by R&D Sector in India

• Delay in disbursal: Since R&D is not the immediate concern of the general public, there is no popular pressure on the government to allocate and spend money on R&D projects without delays. 

• Example: The finance minister in her budget speech of 2021 proposed an allocation of Rs 50,000 crore to NRF over the next five years. However, in the actual budget, no such provision was made. 

• High dependence on grants: This creates a situation where quality of research at doctoral level gets hampered when less funding is provided to the public institutions. 

• Example: Many universities depend on the DST, DBT, ICMR and CSIR under their external support system

• Poor Private Sector Participation: India’s private sector has made comparatively lesser investment into R&D, which pulls down India’s technological developments.

• Example: Private sector contributes 37% of the total R&D expenditure in India, while it is over 66% in developed countries. 

• Lack of Expert Research Guides: The best talent of our country migrates to foreign countries as they don’t get the requisite ecosystem for doing good quality research resulting in brain drain and lack of expertise.

• Focus of Research on Irrelevant Subjects: In India, the quality of the research material is poor when compared to research works of developed nations, leading to lower number of citations.

• Example: India’s Research Output was 4th highest in the world, but in citations, it was placed 9th.

• Weak Patent System: India's patent system has been weak and unreliable in safeguarding commercial innovations, which has created a sense of unease among firms, as they fear that their intellectual property may not be adequately protected, leaving their potential profits vulnerable.

• Lack of Involvement by HEIs: The students in the higher education sector in India has little interest to channel towards research due to concern regarding career progress.

• Example: Out of the approximately 40,000 higher education institutions in India, less than 1% actively participates in high-quality research.

Government Initiatives to Boost R&D 

• National Research Foundation: Aims to fund competitive, peer-reviewed grant proposals from the universities, colleges, and institutions of higher learning.

• IMPRINT initiative: IMPacting Research, INnovation and Technology (IMPRINT) scheme is a pan-IIT and IISc joint collaboration that aims to provide solutions to the most relevant engineering challenges by translating knowledge into viable technology in 10 selected technology domains.

• Atal Tinkering Labs: Aims to foster curiosity, creativity and imagination in young minds; and inculcate skills such as design mindset, computational thinking, adaptive learning etc. 

• Prime Minister’s Research Fellowship (PMRF): To attract the talent pool of the country to doctoral (Ph.D.) programs of Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) and Indian Institute of Science (IISc) for carrying out research in cutting edge science and technology domains, with focus on national priorities.

• Scheme for Promotion of Academic and Research Collaboration (SPARC) by MoHRD facilitates academic and research collaborations between Indian Institutions and the best institutions in the world.

• JIGYASA: The Programme is expected to connect 1151 Kendriya Vidyalayas with 38 National Laboratories of CSIR so as to extend student’s classroom learning with that of very well-planned research laboratory-based learning.

Way Forward 

• Increased budgetary allocation:  Economic Survey 2020-21 suggested that the country needs to increase its GERD from around 0.7% to over 2% of its GDP.

• Government-Industry-Academia partnership:  Modes like those related to Covaxin development need to be promoted to support the R&D Ecosystem in India. 

• Efficient patent system: Reduce the delays and bureaucratic red tape in getting patents in India. Indian Patent Act, 1970 should be simplified and made research-friendly for product-oriented results.  

• Augment the R&D infrastructure of state universities: DST should work in collaboration with State Governments to transform and reorient the R&D facilities in around 350 State Universities. 

• Incentivize Post-Doctoral work across the spectrum: Young scientists and researchers should be encouraged for post-doc, so that they have access to better remuneration opportunities.

Hence, it is high time for India to focus more on improving its research infrastructure to ensure that the nation competes and delivers at the highest level.

Tags:
Social Justice

Keywords:
Research and Development R&D JIGYASA Scheme for Promotion of Academic and Research Collaboration SPARC IMPRINT initiative Prime Minister’s Research Fellowship Atal Tinkering Labs Patent System National Research Foundation higher education Resea

Syllabus:
General Studies Paper 2

Topics:
Social Justice