India’s science problem is not talent, but priorities

Why in the News

Each October, the Nobel announcements revive the question of why India, with an enormous pool of scientific talent, rarely features among the laureates. The gap lies in priorities: India presses scientists to build products and commercialise research, and underinvests in the basic science from which such technologies emerge.

What is basic science, and why must it come first?

1. What it is: Basic science is investigator driven, curiosity led research that need not promise a patent, product or technology. It is like a building’s foundation, unseen but carrying everything above it.
2. Why it comes first: Technology cannot be produced on demand. Eg. A diagnostic platform needs years of work on disease biology, pathogen behaviour, host response, biomarkers and molecular mechanisms first.
3. Pressure for products: Scientists are pushed to “develop technologies”, “build products” and “commercialise research”. These are legitimate goals, but they fund the final product stage and neglect the discovery stage.
4. The takeaway: Funding only near term products cuts off the discoveries that future products depend on, so India’s problem is priorities, not talent.

What do the research leaders do differently?

1. Research spending gap: India’s gross expenditure on research and development (R&D), or GERD, meaning total R&D spending by government, business and universities, is only about 0.64% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP). China is approaching 2.7%.
2. Higher spenders: The United States (US) spends about 3.4% of GDP on R&D, and South Korea over 5%.
3. Who funds research: Business funds about 40% of India’s R&D, against roughly three quarters in the US and China. So India both spends too little (a scale gap) and gets too little from business (a private participation gap).
4. China’s lesson: As its R&D investment grew, China connected discovery to engineering, manufacturing and markets, and became a major supplier of affordable technology. Eg. It produced around 80% of the world’s solar photovoltaic (PV) modules and battery cells in 2024.

Why does the push for quick results work against discovery?

1. Short, micromanaged grants: Research is funded over short durations with heavy administrative oversight, so questions that take years to answer go unasked.
2. Convenient metrics: Publication counts, journal impact factors, patents and grant utilisation are easy to count, but they do not necessarily measure discovery.
3. Penalty for failure: A young scientist who pursues an unconventional question, fails and changes direction is penalised for not producing an immediate product.
4. Unused advantage: India’s vast and diverse population is a natural setting for research, but a system chasing quick outputs leaves it unused.

Challenges

1. Thin researcher base: India has about 260 researchers per million people, against over 4,000 in the US and the United Kingdom (UK).
2. Bureaucratic bottlenecks: Delays in procurement, approvals and compliance slow research.
3. Lab to market gap: Weak conversion of research into patents, products and commercial use leaves even good discoveries stranded.
4. Brain drain: Many of India’s best researchers leave for better funded systems abroad.

Way Forward

1. Protected basic science window: Reserve a defined share of competitive funding for investigator driven research that need not promise a patent, product or technology.
2. Three portfolios: Divide research funding into discovery, translation and deployment portfolios, each with its own timelines and success metrics.
3. Long duration funding: Fund projects for longer, with rigorous scientific review but less administrative micromanagement.
4. National shared infrastructure: Open genomics, proteomics, advanced imaging, biobanks, structural biology, artificial intelligence (AI) and computational platforms to all institutions.
5. Discovery based evaluation: Reward originality, reproducibility, important questions and new datasets, and let young scientists pursue one question for 10 to 15 years without penalty.

Conclusion

India’s research system rewards quick, countable outputs over discovery, so more money alone will not close its gap with the research leaders. Whether funding agencies reserve money for curiosity led work and change how they judge scientists will decide India’s capacity for Nobel level discovery.

Key numbers

1. R&D spending, Germany and Japan: over 3% and over 3.5% of GDP respectively.
2. China’s electric car output: about 70% of global production (2025).

Initiatives for Research and Development

1. Anusandhan National Research Foundation (ANRF): Set up under the Anusandhan National Research Foundation Act, 2023, it funds and coordinates research across universities, laboratories and industry.
2. Research, Development and Innovation (RDI) Scheme: A Rs 1 lakh crore initiative to raise private sector participation in high impact R&D.
3. Ramanujan Fellowship: The Department of Science and Technology’s fellowship draws mid career Indian origin scientists back from abroad.
4. INSPIRE Faculty Award: It supports early career researchers with Assistant Professor level funding and laboratory grants.

Matching Previous Year Question

“[2019, GS3, 10 marks] How was India benefited from the contributions of Sir M.Visvesvaraya and Dr. M. S. Swaminathan in the fields of water engineering and agricultural science respectively?”