India's Need For Research

Languishing at yet another bottom of the pyramid, India is ranked 119^th in the world for the significance of the research papers published by its top Institutes, according to the Science Citation Index. This acute lack of research is essentially because of the lack of funds available. The annual research budget of USA and China is US$250 and US$60 billion respectively compared to India’s special US$1 billion “Inclusive Innovation Fund” announcement this year. According to the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development(OECD) data India has a mere 119 researchers per million of its population, compared to 1,564 in China, 2,706 in the UK, 4,605 in the US and 6,807 in Iceland. Even in terms of the number of researchers per 1,000 employed personnel, India with 24 researchers ranks below China (115), Japan (131), the European Union (231) and the US (324).

In the World Universities Ranking by Thomson Reuters and Times Higher Education, the only Indian university to feature in the top 400 is IIT Bombay on the 317^th place(which is outside the top 50 for engineering and Technology). To be fair to them, their annual research budget is 100 times lesser than that of Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

The implications of this grim scenario on Business are serious. Status Quo and the world may no longer be flat. If the constant need for upgradation is not met then apart from the established businesses losing share to their global counterparts, the new entrepreneurs will find it harder to absorb the cost of foreign technology against the opportunity cost of the underdeveloped indigenous ones. In the short run it seems cheaper to outsource technology from the recession affected west and fundamentally inexpensive China against establishing fully functioning active Research and development (R&D) divisions in Universities, Government owned facilities and small businesses, but it increases the foreign dependence of the nation. With the economic improvement of the western world in the long run there will be a restoration of bargaining power and will also lead to worsening of balance of payment deficits. India is already the largest importer of defense equipment.

The only respite is the interest shown by the MNCs to innovate, reflected in the substantial increase in the FDI inflow for R&D which was US$4 billion in 2010. The number of research divisions has gone upto 750 from 40 in the last decade. Companies like Yahoo have started offering five times the salary to a research scholar than what IITs and IISC offer. HP Labs is offering doctoral programs in collaboration with BITS Pilani for its R&D scholars. Initiatives like the development of Swach Water Filter by Tata Chemicals in collaboration with MIT, which is 50% more cost effective than its nearest rival, need to be replicated far more frequently.

But the government needs to pull up its socks if the country wants to become a self sustainable economy and strive towards achieving Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam’s vision 2020. The ‘Research Culture’ also needs to be developed so that there is an increase the number of the ‘Masters’ minds that move up to the PhD level and add to the intellectual capital of the country.