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‘India is world’s fifth largest investor in science,’ says govt’s principal scientific advisor

Hindustan Times, New Delhi | By
Jan 20, 2019 07:44 AM IST

K Vijay Raghavan, principal scientific advisor to the government of India, and Sir Mark Walport, chief executive of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), explain why the future of research and innovation depends on international collaborations.

K Vijay Raghavan, principal scientific advisor to the government of India, and Sir Mark Walport, chief executive of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), explain why the future of research and innovation depends on international collaborations.

Why does research need multi-country collaboration?

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MW: The way we do research is changing. If we look at just the scale at which experiments are conducted, there is large infrastructure involved at great cost. This can’t always be borne by a single country, so, international collaborations are important.

India will soon become the world’s third-largest economy and it is already one of the world’s research powers.

We have seen that the quality of research produced through the collaboration between India and UK has been more impactful than other collaborations. I think this is because we have similar culture in the way research is pursued in the UK and in India, which is about the freedom to discover things.

The UK is aiming to raise research funding to 2.4% of its GDP, India is still at 0.6%. What are India’s plans?

KVR: India is the fifth-largest investor in science in the world, but the GDP percentage needs to increase. It has hovered between 0.6% and 0.8% because almost all of it — about 75% — comes from government investment. Of the 25% that comes from industry, the bulk is from public sector companies. We need industry to invest in R&D.

The CSIR (Council for Scientific and Industrial Research) is working with industry to reduce risk in their research investment, so you will see an exponential increase there.

The government increase would be more linear, but that too will be exponential in a new area – investment in research in our state university system. Also, there are industries like the IT sector and big multinationals that are investing in research, but that does not get reflected in our research budget.

The UK plans to bring its councils under one umbrella to promote multi-disciplinary research. Does India have similar plans?

KVR: There is a historical value in the separation. Isolation of some kind allows you to get deep domain expertise, and from the point of the scientific investment, there are multiple places to shop. One shouldn’t throw those positive values with an integrative mechanism... I think we should play out the synergy for a few years and see how it works to get the answer to what level of formal integration is needed.

MW: One size doesn’t fit all. We have a flourishing system even under the different research councils, but for the UK, it was felt that the unified body was the right answer. Also, we are not the only funders in the system. Some plurality in the funding system is quite important.

Is research more innovation-centric now?

KVR: I would not look at science, technology and innovation as a linearity. The integration and interactions between what are the problems that need a solution and what are the solutions in search of a problem, where does discovery take you, and how does that integrate with the problems and solutions, are exciting. And facilitating that interaction is what all government missions are about.

MW: There is another issue. The transmission mechanism between academia and business is one that we need strengthened. There has to be more permeability in career to move between academia and industry.

What are the focus areas for research for India and the UK?

MW: Almost everywhere in the world, there are four priority research areas. Clean growth focusing on changing the way we produce energy and food, and transforming construction. The second is healthy ageing, research now has to focus on removing the diseases of old age and living longer and healthier lives. Then we look at the future of mobility. And artificial intelligence and data economy.

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