Budget must address India’s research funding conundrum, move beyond per capita allocation metric

On February 1, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman volition contiguous the Union Budget for the year. Low per capita backing for subject and exertion has been an abiding root of interest for the technological and world community. While their lamentation has merit, it often overshadows much captious systemic issues specified arsenic delays successful money disbursement, bureaucratic inefficiencies successful procurement processes, and rigid fiscal rules that hinder probe progress. Beyond aggregate allocation, inefficiencies successful money organisation and utilisation are arsenic important challenges that request attention.

India’s expenditure connected probe and development, presently astatine 0.64 per cent of GDP, is among the lowest globally, trailing importantly down countries similar Germany, the United States, and China. This has fuelled calls for accrued budgetary allocations. However, the existent contented lies not successful aggregate backing but successful however efficaciously it empowers researchers. With lone 260 researchers per cardinal radical successful 2020, compared to implicit 4,000 successful the United States, a per capita position provides a misleading representation of the backing challenges. The absorption should displacement to ensuring that the constricted fig of researchers successful India person the resources needed to execute impactful research. Delays successful money disbursement, often stretching into years and affecting fellowships for probe students, correspond a systemic inefficiency that compounds challenges faced by the probe community. At the organization level, compliance with rigid General Financial Rules (GFR) leads to protracted procurement processes, delaying indispensable purchases for research. This inefficiency results successful unused funds being returned oregon deducted, perpetuating a rhythm of underutilisation. Researchers often property their inability to present results to these delays, highlighting the systemic barriers that inhibit probe outcomes. Addressing these inefficiencies is important to breaking this rhythm and ensuring researchers person timely entree to resources.

Leading probe nations globally prioritise important backing per researcher, ensuring entree to indispensable infrastructure, tools, and support. For instance, Germany allocates important investigator-led grants done the DFG (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft), providing researchers with autonomy and resources. Consolidating specified insights into India’s strategy could span gaps successful probe interaction and competitiveness. In contrast, India’s accent connected per capita allocation limits the imaginable of its researchers, leaving them incapable to vie efficaciously connected the planetary stage. India’s increasing stock successful planetary technological publications, though commendable, remains humble compared to nations similar China and the United States. A strategical displacement to empower idiosyncratic researchers with targeted backing could assistance span this spread and boost competitiveness.

Efforts to align probe backing with India’s nationalist improvement goals are essential. Research that addresses challenges specified arsenic h2o scarcity, sustainable agriculture, renewable energy, and healthcare tailored to the country’s unsocial needs should instrumentality precedence. However, this absorption connected India-centric challenges often meets absorption from researchers emphasising intelligence state and cardinal exploration. Such collaboration betwixt applied and cardinal probe tin foster innovation portion addressing pressing issues. For instance, critics reason that focusing connected applied, use-oriented studies could bounds the scope of open-ended enquiry indispensable for cardinal breakthroughs. However, examples specified arsenic the improvement of ISRO’s frugal and innovative technologies show that prioritising nationalist challenges tin pb to planetary designation portion fostering innovation wrong constraints. This statement has persisted for years, with beardown arguments connected some sides. While the value of cardinal probe cannot beryllium understated, if determination is statement that India’s per capita fund for subject and exertion is beneath planetary standards, prioritising probe to code pressing nationalist challenges appears necessary. Such prioritisation does not negate the worth of cardinal probe but seeks to equilibrium it with the country’s urgent developmental needs.

Government initiatives specified arsenic the National Quantum Mission and the National Green Hydrogen Mission are commendable examples of focused probe agendas. However, their occurrence hinges connected sustained and capable funding, arsenic good arsenic the elimination of bureaucratic inefficiencies that hold money utilisation. Addressing these systemic issues would not lone accelerate advancement successful problem-centric probe but besides elevate India’s planetary lasting successful subject and technology.

Implementing a much effectual probe backing strategy requires cautious consideration. The accent should displacement from generalised per capita allocations to per-researcher funding, ensuring that resources are concentrated wherever they tin person the top impact. Encouraging private-sector information successful probe done taxation incentives and different mechanisms tin complement authorities efforts and supply further fiscal support. Transparent, merit-based backing mechanisms are indispensable to dispel perceptions of favouritism and guarantee equitable entree to resources. Tailored guidelines for research-fund utilisation, replacing the outdated General Financial Rules, would streamline procurement processes, preventing funds from remaining unutilised.

India’s probe scenery tin lone thrive if systemic inefficiencies are addressed and backing priorities realigned. Empowering researchers with capable resources is captious for driving innovation, addressing nationalist challenges, and competing globally. With targeted strategies, transparent governance, and a absorption connected nationalist priorities, India’s subject and exertion assemblage tin transcend its existent limitations. A thriving probe ecosystem is not conscionable an world perfect but a cornerstone for gathering a self-reliant and globally respected nation. While debates astir the equilibrium betwixt cardinal and applied probe volition continue, the urgency of addressing India-centric problems cannot beryllium overstated. By fostering a probe ecosystem that prioritises ratio and impact, India tin unlock its technological imaginable and beforehand toward its aspirations for 2047.

The writer is erstwhile director, Agharkar Research Institute (DST, Govt of India), Pune, and visiting professor, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay