R&D Roadmap for India

R&D Roadmap for India

  • The future of Indian economy lies in its capacity to harness the growth-enhancing power of innovation. A question that naturally arises is that how deeply the various stake-holders be it the state, the private sector and the citizens of the country are willing to contribute both financially and otherwise?
  • A mere look on the GERD (Gross expenditure on R&D) performed by business enterprise as a percentage of GDP for India which currently stands at 0.2% and is abysmally low  compared to China (1.70 %) would put you in a speculative position rather than a definitive one.
  • Also, the GERD financed by business enterprise as a percentage of total gross expenditure on R&D for India is 36.8 % as compared to China at 76.3% which clearly signifies that all the heavy lifting for R&D in India is being done by the GoI.
  • Though the Indian state is trying to develop several systematic R&D tax incentive schemes for the private sector, as per the size and scale of the industry but still the private investments haven’t picked up.
  • So where do we lag and what lessons India can learn from its other counterparts especially China?
    • Investing in the fundamental Tertiary Education: While China had heavily invested in Higher education and internationalization since mid-1990s via projects like Project 211, Project 985, double first class and the C9 league in india the Institute of eminence (IoE) Scheme was launched as recent as 2017. Ironically this was the period when heavy brain drain happened. The focus of emerging India must be on empowering the Indian Higher Education Institutes (HEI’s) further which in turn would strengthen the culture of Innovation.

 

    • In 2006 China started focusing on developing capabilities for “indigenous innovation” and triggered it by launching a 15-year Medium to Long Term Plan (MLP) for the development of science and technology. The ultimate aim was to convert the general psyche of its population to an innovation-oriented one. During this tenure the GERD increased up from 1.34% in 2005 to around 2.4% in 2020. However, the GERD for India decreased from 0.82% in 2005 to 0.66% in 2018. India needs to rediscover its ancient ethos which could imbibe the culture of innovation in current modern Indian society.