Re policy on rnd: coming from a tech perspective -- the biggest hindrance is lack of education quality and incentive to pursue higher education in India. I am a PhD student in the US, as are tonnes of others. The quality of graduate education -- in everything, rigor, funding, quality of peer group, quality of life, and post graduation opportunities is not comparable at all. As someone who did an undegrad at one of the top institutions -- there is barely good research happening in Indian academia (there are pockets of exception of course but they are small). The salaries are meagre!! And the misogyny and politics in academic department is horrible. I am not saying that this does not exist in the US. But the planes of levels are completely different. There were not many places (maybe 2) I would have considered doing a PhD here -- and that no way compare to the offers I had in the US. And truth be told, I don't feel lured to come back to India as a professor if things don't drastically change in the next couple years (which is unlikely). Unless we are able to change that -- RnD will remain dependant on foreign investments and tie ups with foreign researchers, both of which are at best short term solutions.
"the government could explore enhancing R&D tax incentives to scale innovation"- This may be a good idea. But tax exemption should be linked to demonstrable outcomes of the R&D in terms of either increased productivity or increased profits or increased exports . Most of the times Corporates may just have an R&D section for availing tax exemption without really doing meaningful R&D.
You comment that governmental expenditure on R&D is inline with India's GDP levels.
If inputs are sufficient, we have to ask about outputs - are these commensurate? Is there any way of measuring the return on this R&D?
I don't follow this domain, but the loose impression I have is that the quality of this research is very shoddy, and typically second-hand.
On one occasion, I tried to licence some 'technology' from CFTRI, Mysore, and found that it was only lab-level research, and needed many man-years of development work before it could be productionised.
Indeed. Outputs are not commensurate with inputs. One reason scholars attribute is that our Soviet-modelled research institutes are disconnected from our higher education institutes. So the positive externalities of funding scientific research are not fully realised. The Global Innovation Index compares various output parameters in case you want to check output indicators.
Re policy on rnd: coming from a tech perspective -- the biggest hindrance is lack of education quality and incentive to pursue higher education in India. I am a PhD student in the US, as are tonnes of others. The quality of graduate education -- in everything, rigor, funding, quality of peer group, quality of life, and post graduation opportunities is not comparable at all. As someone who did an undegrad at one of the top institutions -- there is barely good research happening in Indian academia (there are pockets of exception of course but they are small). The salaries are meagre!! And the misogyny and politics in academic department is horrible. I am not saying that this does not exist in the US. But the planes of levels are completely different. There were not many places (maybe 2) I would have considered doing a PhD here -- and that no way compare to the offers I had in the US. And truth be told, I don't feel lured to come back to India as a professor if things don't drastically change in the next couple years (which is unlikely). Unless we are able to change that -- RnD will remain dependant on foreign investments and tie ups with foreign researchers, both of which are at best short term solutions.
Thanks, Pranay - will check out the index
"the government could explore enhancing R&D tax incentives to scale innovation"- This may be a good idea. But tax exemption should be linked to demonstrable outcomes of the R&D in terms of either increased productivity or increased profits or increased exports . Most of the times Corporates may just have an R&D section for availing tax exemption without really doing meaningful R&D.
Fair point
Tanks
You comment that governmental expenditure on R&D is inline with India's GDP levels.
If inputs are sufficient, we have to ask about outputs - are these commensurate? Is there any way of measuring the return on this R&D?
I don't follow this domain, but the loose impression I have is that the quality of this research is very shoddy, and typically second-hand.
On one occasion, I tried to licence some 'technology' from CFTRI, Mysore, and found that it was only lab-level research, and needed many man-years of development work before it could be productionised.
Indeed. Outputs are not commensurate with inputs. One reason scholars attribute is that our Soviet-modelled research institutes are disconnected from our higher education institutes. So the positive externalities of funding scientific research are not fully realised. The Global Innovation Index compares various output parameters in case you want to check output indicators.