Guest Column| India set for ground-breaking research revolution
India’s research ecosystem is poised for a major transformation with the operationalisation of the Anusandhan National Research Foundation (ANRF). This path-breaking initiative of the Narendra Modi government aims to elevate research and innovation across the demographics and geographies of the nation.
The role of research and development in nation-building is crucial, for it accelerates economic growth and global competitiveness, offers tangible solutions to societal challenges, empowers learners with 21st-century global skills-sets, strengthens defence and intelligence capabilities essential for security and strategic positioning, and thereby enhances global reputation and influence.
Investment in R&D enables the scientific community to develop solutions tailored to meet local needs. Focus on research and innovation also helps cultivate a strong, technically empowered youth who can become the propellant of entrepreneurship and development.
India’s expenditure on R&D is merely 0.66% of its GDP; despite this, India has a robust scientific base and is ranked third globally in terms of research publications and PhD graduates. In 2022, India published over three lakh research papers, highlighting its commitment to advancing knowledge. India ranks sixth globally in patent grants. Thus, it has been a long-pending demand of the scientific community to increase the expenditure on research to at least 2% of the GDP for scaling-up society-relevant research outcomes.
The quote of Bill Gates, “I believe in innovation and that the way you get innovation is you fund research, and you learn the basic facts,” is relevant in this context. It is also appropriate to recall the quote of Albert Szent-Gyorgyi, “Research is all about four things: Brains to think, eyes to see, machines to measure, and money.”
India’s research ecosystem is poised for a major transformation with the operationalisation of the Anusandhan National Research Foundation (ANRF). This path-breaking initiative of the Narendra Modi government aims to elevate research and innovation across the demographics and geographies of the nation. With this, a stage is set for a ground-breaking research revolution in the country. It is expected that ANRF would focus on transforming India’s research landscape by promoting interdisciplinary research, building a strong research culture, and establishing India as a global leader of repute, especially in the field of science and research.
Seed, grow and promote
The ANRF is proposed to receive ₹50,000 crore in funding over five years, with contributions from industry, philanthropists, and domestic and international sources, including a government share. The contribution and participation of the industry are crucial in ensuring that research outcomes are aligned with real-world needs and that they can be effectively translated into ground reality. The ANRF is mandated to provide a high-level strategic direction for research, innovation, and entrepreneurship across disciplines encompassing natural sciences, including mathematical sciences, engineering and technology, environmental and earth sciences, health, and agriculture. It is tasked to seed, grow and promote R&D and foster a culture of collaborative research and innovation across institutions, which is essential to find solutions to the issues confronting human civilisation.
The transition of the Science and Engineering Research Board (SERB) to the ANRF is a paradigm shift in priority areas of research funding in India. This process may involve several path-breaking initiatives, such as doubling private sector share in R&D, an increase in the number of full-time researchers, enhanced women’s participation in R&D, and a national repository of science, technology and innovation (STI) data, according to the secretary of the department of science (DST) Abhay Karandikar.
Big targets, new solutions
The first meeting of the governing board of the ANRF was chaired by PM Modi, creating a milestone in the country’s science, technology and innovation trajectory. In the meeting, the PM stressed the need to identify and remove obstacles in the research ecosystem. He underscored the significance of setting big targets, focusing on attaining them and doing path-breaking research. The PM said that research should focus on finding new solutions to existing problems. He emphasised that problems might be global in nature, but their solutions must be localised in accordance with Indian needs.
Several decisions aimed at breaking the inertia and overhauling the research ecosystem were taken at the meeting. The board decided that the ANRF would launch a programme on building research capabilities, especially in those universities where research culture is yet to be developed, through handholding by the established institutions in the hub and spoke model.
Flexible, transparent funding
The ANRF would also launch mission-mode research programmes in national priority areas, such as electric vehicles, advanced materials, smart infrastructure, photonics, solar cells, and health and medical technology. The decision of the board to set up centres of excellence to support interdisciplinary research in the humanities and social sciences would provide much-needed impetus to spearhead multidisciplinary research.
The board recognised that there is an urgent need to empower our researchers with flexible and transparent funding mechanisms towards achieving “ease of doing research”. It was argued that the thrust on basic and fundamental research is as important as translational research, for it promotes creativity and critical thinking.
Research support to early career researchers was considered crucial for capacity building. The board underscored the importance of the participation of the industry and discussed ways to incentivise the industry to co-invest with ANRF in R&D.
This approach would also help break open the silos between the academia and industry besides leading to enhanced collaboration.
Lab to real-life application
The ANRF has the Herculean task of catapulting reforms to facilitate research that brings a tangible impact on society. The foundation is supposed to shift the focus of research from merely generating research output to quality research necessary for making India atmanirbhar (self-reliant) and a global leader in research and innovation. This would also strengthen PM Modi’s campaign for Viksit Bharat@2047.
The foundation would encourage translational research in all universities beyond technology readiness level-3 (TRL-3), confirming the strong desire of the government to take research outcomes from the lab to real-life applications.
The operationalisation of the ANRF signifies a commitment of the government in transforming the research and innovation ecosystem of the nation to make it current and relevant. The ANRF is poised to enable quicker decision-making on research issues and reduce response time in addressing the needs of the S&T system. This is essential for building a system that is on a par with the best global practices in the promotion and funding of basic and applied research.
An exciting time is ahead for the scientific community, which has been waiting for this moment since long. We are looking forward with zeal towards the ANRF for performing its mandated tasks. The scientific community ought to be grateful to PM Modi for making the ANRF functional and also for the decision facilitating the purchase of scientific equipment without paying GST.
The writer is vice-chancellor, Central University of Punjab, Bathinda. Views expressed are personal.