Proposed National Research Foundation welcome, but challenge is making it truly autonomous
Post Date – 12:30 AM, Wednesday – July 5
Encouraging critical thinking and innovative ideas is a key component of public policy for science and technology development. Unfortunately, despite its enormous talent and human resources, India still lags behind developed countries in terms of groundbreaking innovations with global reach. Insufficient research and development (R&D) spending has been the bane of Indian science. Highly bureaucratic and patronage-driven scientific management is another limiting factor. Against this rather depressing backdrop, the recent decision of the union cabinet to set up the National Research Foundation (NRF) and allocate Rs 50,000 crore for the apex body to “sow, grow and promote” research and development is to be welcomed . The initiative is likely to be a game-changer for fostering a culture of scientific research. NRF is expected to play a key role in nurturing and promoting research, innovation and growth in universities, colleges, research institutes, industry and R&D laboratories. It will establish an interface mechanism so that, in addition to science and line ministries, state governments and industry can also participate in and contribute to scientific R&D. The challenge is to make the agency truly autonomous, involve the private sector and ensure the smooth flow of funds. Currently, the lack of a suitable collaborative ecosystem forces scientists to work in silos that fail to meet the changing needs of people and industry. Consequently, only a few selected institutions have research outputs that meet global standards. This needs to be rectified if the country is to achieve anything significant globally.
NRF is modeled after the National Science Foundation, which has been a research enabler in several fields, aiming to build collaborations between industry, academia, government and research institutions. This partnership has led to some breakthrough developments in the global knowledge economy. In India, however, even scientists at top research institutions face bureaucratic hurdles in raising funding. The NRF hopes to help facilitate change. The main reason for India’s poor performance in experimental science is the lack of significant collaborative efforts and sustained long-term funding. The country’s performance is far from encouraging on key parameters such as spending on science as a percentage of GDP, the number of PhDs produced each year or citations to Indian papers in the scientific literature. India spends less than 1% of its GDP on research, compared with more than 2% in China. With a large young population and a strong diaspora that is wealthier and more accomplished, the country has great potential to lead in high-tech innovation. Overhauling the science education and research system, removing bureaucracy, implementing structural changes to improve management, and creating a large number of centers of excellence around outstanding individuals would go a long way towards realizing its true potential.
