Funding the Future: A Chance at genuine innovation
Context:
- An eight-person group led by K Kasturirangan was constituted in 2017 to develop a national education strategy. The group’s proposals were collected into the National Education Policy 2020 (NEP-2020) document.
- The report highlighted the flaws in the higher education system, the most glaring of which were the rigid boundaries between disciplines and fields, the thousands of unaffiliated organisations, the paucity of research at the majority of universities and colleges, and the lack of an open and competitive peer-reviewed research funding system.
- One of the main recommendations of NEP-2020 was the establishment of a National Research Foundation (NRF) to manage a competitive financing system for R&D in universities and institutes related to higher education.
The recently founded NRF will aid in advancing research and development:
- The Central government has at last approved the NRF’s foundation. A budget of Rs 50,000 crore has been allocated for research over the next five years.
- An estimated Rs 14,000 crore will come from the federal government, with the balance Rs 36,000 crore coming from foundations, companies, and international research organisations.
- It also advocated turning the DST branch of Science Engineering Research Board (SERB) into NRF.
The significance of and objective of the National Research Foundation (NRF) are as follows:
- The declared objectives of NRF are to “seed, grow and promote research and development (R&D) and foster a culture of innovation throughout Indian universities, colleges, institutions, and R&D laboratories.”
- funding need-based research in order to advance the natural sciences, engineering, technology, earth sciences, and social sciences.
Government funding for research and development as of right now:
- Currently, core funds and extramural grants are the two methods that the government distributes funding for R&D. The vast bulk of costs are paid for through basic funding.
- For the fiscal year 2016–17, the Central Government spent Rs 42,074 crore on R&D. Comprehensive information is available in “Research and Development Statistics 2019–20 by DST.”
- DRDO (31.8%), DoS (19.1%), and DAE (11.3%), the three organisations that receive the most financing, almost solely use core funds.
- Extramural grants totaled about Rs 2,454 crore (5.8% of the overall R&D spending) in 2016–17, supporting 4,711 initiatives.
- This pitiful sum assisted the national laboratories, IISc, IITs, colleges, state universities, including agricultural universities, and central universities in achieving their research and development objectives.
Funding for educational institutions has to be increased:
- According to NEP-2020, India needs a strong system of competitive grants. the number of colleges, universities, and medical schools has increased significantly.
- However, the overall sum allotted for extramural rewards has not changed. As a result, the country has suffered greatly as a result of poor PhD training.
- In the big picture, India spends far too little on R&D, 0.65 percent of GDP (of which 0.41 percent comes from public funding and 0.24 percent from private investment).
- These investments are considerably less than those made by the developed and recently growing countries of East Asia, which account for more than 2% of GDP.
- Therefore, a competitive grant system provides the flexibility needed to progress research in cutting-edge domains where interdisciplinarity is crucial and can be used for collaborations between academic institutions, industries, and governments.
Conclusion:
- NRG administration will nurture, cultivate, and support research and development (R&D) and foster an innovative culture throughout Indian universities, colleges, institutes, and R&D laboratories in addition to managing the projects and disbursing a grant of Rs 3,000 crore in the launch year.
- As a result, the founding of NRF is a smart step in the right direction for India’s research and development.
