Analysing The "Research And Development" Aspect Of India :- How Can India Be More Innovative?

Just a week ago, while speaking at the Infosys Prize award announcement event, Tech billionaire and founder of Infosys, NR Narayan Murthy lamented about the present education system. He spoke on how research and development aspect is totally lost from the Indian society and expressed his agony in the following sharp and penetrating statements:-

"The country has had a healthy run in scientific and technological progress in the last few years. We rolled out our Covid-19 vaccines for billions of Indians. These were produced by Indian firms and this was a remarkable achievement. But we still have challenges. There is not a single Indian institution of higher learning in the top 250 of the world university global rankings that were announced in 2022."

He said that the Indian Education System needs a reorientation.

"The first component is to reorient our teaching in schools and colleges towards Socratic questioning, in the classroom to solve real world problems around them rather than passing the examinations by rote learning".."Even our top institutions like IITs have become victims of this syndrome. Thanks to the tyranny of coaching classes," he said. 

Speaking on how this land of India has become less fertile for research and innovation, he said,

""Many experts feel that in our country, (there is an) inability to use research to solve our immediate pressing problems around us..This is due to lack of inculcating curiosity at an early age, disconnect between pure or applied research, inadequate cutting edge research infrastructure in our higher educational institutions..," Murthy said in his keynote speech.

He essentially meant that India has not yet fully realised its power in research and scientific innovation to progress.

 If we see the recent history of Indian achievements which brought India unbounded glory worldwide are all scientific and research based achievements. Take for instance our CoViD-19 vaccines. This is just in the healthcare sector. Take for instance, the government's revolutionary policy of UPI which digitalised our entire economy, and made it thrive unimaginably.

If we go deeper, we find mostly all of our achievements rooted in teamed scientific researches. Take for instance the Mangalyaan Mission. I can go on citing examples of it.

Hence, our today's blog is my purest of obligation to all my fellow comrades to point out the pressing needs of encouraging research and development in India and spread awareness about its sheer importance.

Lets start by analysing how much the government pushes scientific research and development.

R & D in India :- An Overview

India's gross expenditure on research and development (R&D) is one of the lowest in the world, with just $43 per capita, according to NITI Aayog's India Innovation Index 2021.

This shows that India needs to boost this expenditure and at least be on a par with its BRICS or ASEAN counterparts like Russia ($285), Brazil ($173), and Malaysia ($293), the government think tank says.

India's gross expenditure on R&D (GERD) as a percentage of GDP has been consistent and hovered around 0.7% for about a decade. This is even lower than Brazil (1.16%), South Africa (0.83%) and others. Only Mexico (0.31%) had a lower share of GERD as a percentage of GDP.

With such low contribution, R&D performance remains stagnant, NITI Aayog points out.

Despite a low expenditure on R&D, India has published more research papers than even countries like Russia, Brazil, and South Korea, among others.

The reason why India can emerge out as a great country in innovation and scientific research -

India’s highly skilled and educated demographic (contributing population) provides a ready and capable workforce to engage in cerebral research. In 2016, India produced the most number of graduates worldwide with 78 million fresh graduates, of which 2.6 million were from STEM (science, technology, engineering and math). 

India’s burgeoning demographic dividend (benefits of population) presents a billion opportunities across sectors and the perfect motivation for companies to constantly innovate, making India the global destination for research and development.

Conclusion of the Blog

We conclude our today's blog with the perfect conclusion which Narayan Murthy brought to his speech,

"“There is an urgent need for both government and private sectors to invest more in science and research. This is the best way forward to solve the many problems that confront us as a nation and humanity as a whole. Our researchers are the country’s frontline warriors in the war against our grand problems. That is why we must encourage them."

Thanks,

Daksh Parekh.