R&D in India: An introspection

Kirti Dua
Professor, Veterinary Medicine, GADVASU, Ludhiana  

One  of my colleagues at the university, suffering from uncontrolled diabetes, got himself checked at AIIMS, New Delhi. He was referred to the Department of Neurobiology for consultation. Investigation revealed that emotional stress was the main culprit of his falling health. He was told that this arises when somebody works continuously for a long period in a conflicting environment. Therefore, the body and the mind don't accept the situation and react. 

So, the only way of saving yourself is to change either your mindset or your job. Unfortunately, both things are not easy. Thousands of people in our educational institutions are living this dilemma and suffering. Very often the work environment is not conducive for constructive optimisation of one's potential. Many a times, the talent of a good research worker remains underutilised in our institutes even as his contemporary in the North America attains newer heights. For example 36 per cent scientists working in NASA, are Indians. 

Many serious issues, both at the university and central levels, are affecting the  research output. At the central level, there are certain non-performing policies and procedures which need to be amended for alignment with the 21st century. For the year 2016-17, the R & D budget of our country was Rs 1,04,864 crore, which is about 0.7 per cent of the GDP. There is no doubt that India's 

spending on R&D is well below than in such major nations as Israel (4.3), Korea (4.2),US (2.8) and China (2.1). But, is the money spent on 

R&D giving its worth and contributing to our economic growth?

In the educational institutes, we are unable to overcome redtape, resulting in waste of energy and resources on non-productive works. Quite often, the merit of a scholar is ignored in selections due to favouritism and political interference, thereby affecting the work culture and quality. Consequently, at the global level, our research publication contribution is just 4.4 per cent (2014) and we fall way behind other developed nations as far as quality research is concerned. Two recent findings by the UGC —"Plagiarism in the universities" and "Dubious journal let scholars pay and publish" — explain the falling research standards in our country.

Research and development and economic growth are interdependent. It is high time we did introspection and made the environment suitable for innovation in educational ecosystem. In our country, there is no dearth of talent and we have successful research institute models like ISRO that has made us proud. These models need to be extrapolated to other institutes so that we build a conducive environment to engage ourselves in research that translates into innovative products, services or processes. We require a structured roadmap to address the challenges in such areas of national importance as poverty, health and education and move in the direction of becoming a global knowledge superpower.