DC Edit | Lip Service Not Enough, Give Science More Funds
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s announcement that India is working to build a modern innovation ecosystem and focusing on improving the ease of doing research in the country, as well as his recommendation that the focus of research should shift to addressing the emerging challenges facing humanity, is welcome, but it is somewhat unclear how the government he heads has conducted itself to facilitate these noble goals over the last decade.
Interestingly, the Prime Minister was speaking at the first edition of the Emerging Science, Technology and Innovation Meeting (ESTIC) 2025. The new event is expected to replace the slowly dying Indian Science Congress (ISC) in 2023. The ISC, which preceded India’s independence and was considered one of the finest gatherings of scientific minds worldwide, was notorious for promoting pseudoscience; community just before it was shut down.
The Prime Minister said India supports high-risk and high-impact research and development projects and encourages private investments to emerge as a science and technology hub. The Prime Minister, who also launched an investment fund of Rs 1 lakh crore for this purpose, put forward the need to shift the attention of the scientific community from food security to nutritional security. He suggested that a new generation of biofortified crops could help combat malnutrition globally. Mr. Modi also drew the attention of the scientific community to some other urgent demands of the country and the world, such as low-cost soil health enhancers and biofertilizers, mapping of genomic diversity to advance personalized medicine and disease prediction, and new and affordable innovations in clean energy storage.
It is the responsibility of the political leadership to put society’s demands before the scientific community. Mr. Modi was also right to point out that change is exponential rather than linear, as research can lead to products and processes that can bypass own protocols and processes and deliver breakthrough solutions. Nutrition security is indeed a laudable goal, but the reality on the ground is that India as a country is yet to achieve food security; Approximately 60 percent of the population is provided with free grain and food. It is important that the country’s thought leaders set realistic goals and listen to achieve them.
Mr Modi claimed that the government has implemented several reforms in fiscal rules and procurement policies, and pointed out that India’s R&D expenditure has doubled in the last decade, while the number of registered patents has increased 17 times, making India now the third largest start-up ecosystem in the world. However, it is worth noting that the increase in fund availability in the public sector during this period was not proportional to the growth of the economy. According to available government data, total R&D expenditure, measured in terms of gross research and development expenditure (GERD) as a percentage of GDP, has actually fallen from 0.66 per cent in 2018-19 to 0.64 per cent in 2022-23; however, this figure is quite high in China, from 3.4 to four. India’s share in global R&D increased from three percent in 2000 to five percent in 2023, while China’s share increased from four percent to 26 percent.
In order for India to achieve its leading position in research and innovation, it needs to set realistic targets and spend money in line with its needs. There is no doubt that basic research around the world is funded by governments. If Mr. Modi is serious about his scientific dream of using knowledge as a tool to solve the country’s problems, he should encourage his government to change its approach to research.
