24/02/2020 - S & T

KEY POINTS

·        Publicly-funded research has always been encouraged to reinvent the wheel and customise technology to Indian realities, whereas private companies and industrial firms have rarely been incentivised to develop their own intellectual property.

·        Public institutions contribute the lion’s share of R&D investment. In 2004-05, the private sector accounted for 28% of research spend; it was40% in 2016-17.

·        In most advanced economies, private R&D accounts for the bulk of investment in R&D. Moreover, relative to its income, India underspends on R&D compared to what the U.S. and China did when it had income levels comparable to India’s now.

·        When ‘Startup India’ and ‘Make in India’ were the buzzwords in the early years of the government, there were attempts to have venture capitalists and government departments involved in scientific research, to pool money and invest in technology start-ups.

·        Too much of India’s research investment is expended on a small pool of scientists in a limited number of institutions. The private sector has extremely limited capacity to absorb scientists and a limited risk-appetite to invest in futuristic technology.

·        Private research funding is also boosted more by partnerships among companies rather than by centrally-funded research programmes.

·        While private funding is increasing, it still has not reached a level where major central funding can make a significant impact. Many CSIR laboratories have had a long history of collaborating with companies to develop and transfer technology to industry, but here too, restrictions on how intellectual property and licence fees can be shared abound.

please review

Please review.