Ease of Doing Research & Development (R&D) in India

Key Challenges

Recommendations

Funding and Utilization

• Concentration of R&D funding in selected institutions: E.g., IITs receive more than 80% of ANRF's R&D funding.
• Limited cross-departmental visibility: E.g., both DST and CSIR support R&D projects in Hydrogen Energy, Carbon Capture Utilization and Storage etc.

• Enhance national investment in R&D: To at least 2% of GDP, in 4-5 years.
  • Attract around half of targeted GERD from private sector. 
• Enhance Philanthropic and CSR Support: By leveraging CSR provisions under Companies Act, etc. 

Attracting and Retaining Quality Human Resource

• Delayed Disbursal of Fellowships: Along with limited institutional autonomy in mapping Human Resources.  
• Delays in Recruitment: Due to administrative reasons (financial reasons in case of state institutions). 
• Administrative burden on teachers: Faculty members are often engaged in teaching responsibilities and administrative duties with very limited time for R&D. 

• Increase in fellowships: DST, ANRF, DBT, DSIR, DHE, ICAR and ICMR may consider increasing postdoctoral fellowships in S&T, by 20% every year. 
• Create 'Vigyan Nidhi': It will act as a digital fellowship platform enabling direct benefit transfers and structured support to address gaps in fellowship funding and disbursal delays. 
• Faculty reforms: Provide Institutional Autonomy to rationalise faculty and adopt flexible hiring models; Create Teaching and Research focused tracks in Universities; etc.

Institutional Structures and Processes

• R&D efforts spread across too many themes: Without prioritisation or long-term planning. 
• No focused assessment/rating. 
• Lack of enabling policies:  For faculty/researcher-led entrepreneurship in Institutions. 
• Other issues: Absent or ineffective dedicated R&D office in institutions; Inadequate guidelines for administrative/financial aspects of projects. 

• Setting up professional R&D Offices: As single-window hubs for grant management etc. 
• Compliance-centric to trust-based administration: Majority of the administrative functions should suffice with self-declaration or self-certification by researchers. 
• Other suggestions: Clearly identify priority research areas based on their existing strengths; Develop an Ease of Doing R&D assessment framework etc.
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Technology Development, Translation & Commercialization

• Lack of Effective Technology Transfer Support: Concerning translational aspect of technologies developed in the lab.
• Weak Industry-Academia Linkage: Limited Mobility between Academia and Industry across universities, public labs, etc. 
• Absence of Regulatory sandbox provision: In deep-technology domains. 

• Establishing/ Strengthening Technology Transfer Offices (TTOs). 
• Framework for Industry-Academia mobility. 
• Linking framework for incubators across ministries: For enhancing capacity and integration across incubation ecosystem. 
• Establish a Centre for Technology Indigenization (CTI): To identify priority technologies for indigenization. 

Access to Knowledge & Resources

• Gaps in Access to Journals, Databases and Software: E.g., One Nation One Subscription (ONOS) currently not extended to private universities/ institutions. 
• Challenges in National publications: Like inconsistent peer-review, limited international indexing, low citations, etc. 

• Widen ONOS coverage: To include private institutions on cost sharing basis.
• Developing large-scale, integrated, and Web discoverable National Repository: To provide open access and sharing of Indian research output. 
• Develop quality National Journals: Through a professionally managed ecosystem, leveraging the expertise of Indian science academies.

R&D in State Institutions

• Lack of Institutional Support: For Grassroots Innovation. 
• Dual Control Structures: E.g., administrative positions like Registrar, occupied by state civil services while functional authority rests with Vice-Chancellor. 
• No defined framework: For collaboration of central R&D labs in state, with state institutions.

• State Science and Technology Councils: To strengthen capability and resources. 
• Creating a dedicated Grassroot innovation cell: Within each State S&T Council. 
• Develop a framework for collaboration: Between centrally funded R&D institutions/HEIs with state level institutions. 

Monitoring, Evaluation, Capacity Building and Policy Administration

• Linear flow: Of existing Science, Technology and Innovation (STI) management framework with limited feedback mechanisms. 

• Establish National Institute for Science Policy and Governance (NISPG): As nodal institution to bridge policy, implementation and monitoring gaps. E.g. Japan.