GS Paper 3
Syllabus: Science and Technology
Direction: Go through it once.
Context: Even after 75 years of Independence, India spends a meagre 0.7% of its GDP on research and development (R&D), the author argues what should be done to improve innovation, R&D and science for the masses.
Even the funds which come for R&D are mired in several issues such as:
- Inadequate staffing at funding agencies
- lack of transparency in fund disbursal
- excessive delay in fund disbursal
- Outdated appraisal system of the outcome of the research
Fundamental policy changes required:
- Spending 4% of the national GDP on R&D (Israel and South Korea spend nearly 5% of their GDP on R&D).
- Building physical and intellectual infrastructure across the country, especially in the universities.
- Globally competitive institutional administrators and standardized processes for better academia-industry collaborations
- Ensuring that individual institutions implement processes to accommodate the large budget
- Linking science with society by encouraging individual entrepreneurs
- A robust system to link the labs with the entrepreneurs to funnel innovative ideas, products, and solutions to our society needs to be in place.
Insta Links:
Research and development ecosystem in India
Mains Links
Q. Investment in infrastructure is essential for more rapid and inclusive economic growth.” discuss in the light of India’s experience. (UPSC 2021)
