National Research Foundation approved State of science – Where India lags:
Current circumstance:
- Most recently, the government’s endorsement of the National Research Foundation (NRF) has received appreciation from the scientific community.
- The NRF is equipped to independently address a wide range of issues that have been brought up about India’s scientific research sector for years.
- India has a significant pool of science and engineering graduates and is actively involved in some of the most cutting-edge areas of scientific study. India also boasts an extensive network of research institutions and labs.
- In terms of modern scientific capabilities, India is presently ranked among the top countries. India lags behind other countries, some of which have substantially fewer resources, on a variety of research metrics.
R&D expenses:
- The majority of these go towards R&D operations in India.
- For more than 20 years, the Centre has made committing at least 2% of the nation’s GDP to R&D a public goal.
- Not only has this objective not been met, but the proportion of GDP spent on research has declined from around 0.8% at the start of this millennium to about 0.65% right now. For the past ten years or so, this piece has not changed.
- However, this does not indicate that research funding has not increased.
- Since India’s GDP has grown faster, the percentage of research has fallen.
- According to the 2021 UNESCO Science Report, at least 37 countries spent more than 1% of their GDP on research and development in 2018, the last year for which data from all countries is available. 15% of them invested 2% or more of their money.
- R&D spending accounts for about 1.79 percent of global GDP. Compared to India, worldwide R&D spending growth has outpaced GDP growth.
- Additionally, only 18% of Indian scientists are women, compared to a global average of 33%.
During academic research:
- The vast majority of India’s higher education institutions are colleges, numbering close to 40,000.
- According to the complete project report on NRF, just 1% of these actively do research, despite the fact that universities are the primary locations for R&D in the majority of developed countries. The NRF concept therefore emphasises the importance of resolving this.
- According to the Department of Science and Technology (DST), there were 7,888 R&D institutes across the country in 2021, including more than 5,200 units in the private sector and businesses that predominantly conduct industry-specific research. On the list of private sector organisations are 921 industries that “have potential” to conduct research activities.
Results of the study:
- India produced 25,550 doctorates in 2020–21, with 14,983 of those coming from the sciences and engineering.
- With a PhD percentage of 59%, which is high when compared to other countries, India is ranked sixth overall.
- India leads the pack even in terms of absolute numbers, producing more doctorates in science and engineering each year than only the US, China, and the UK combined.
- However, this is not particularly outstanding given the magnitude of India’s population. In fact, when compared to even developing countries like Brazil (888), South Africa (484) or Mexico (349), India’s 262 researchers per million inhabitants is exceedingly low.
Publications and patents:
- In 2020, over 2.5 times as many Indian researchers produced 149,213 articles in science and engineering journals as they had ten years earlier, according to DST data.
- However, it only represented 5% of the total pieces. Chinese researchers made up 23% of the total, while Americans made up 15%.
Conclusion:
- It is anticipated that the National Research Foundation (NRF), whose stated mission is to seed, extend, and promote research and development (R&D), will help create a culture of research and innovation.
