For science to flourish, National Research Foundation plugs a policy gap (GS Paper 3, Science and Technology)
Context:
- Recently, the Union Cabinet approved the National Research Foundation (NRF) Bill in Parliament.
- The NRF will be an apex body to provide high-level strategic direction to scientific research in India, aligning with the recommendations of the National Education Policy (NEP), 2023.
Governance:
- The administrative department of the NRF will be the Department of Science and Technology (DST), Government of India.
- The governance of NRF will be formulated by a Governing Board, presided over by the Prime Minister, and comprising the Union Ministers of Science and Technology and of Education as Vice-Presidents, and eminent scientists representing various disciplines as members.
- An Executive Council, with the Principal Scientific Adviser to the Government of India as its chair, will oversee the NRF’s functioning.
Scope:
- The principal reason to form the NRF is to foster collaboration among academic and research institutions, industry and government departments.
- The NRF will create a policy framework and regulatory processes that can encourage collaboration and increased spending by industry on research and development. Apparently, a Bill needed to be introduced because current laws do not easily permit a private organisation to contribute funds for research to a body, such as the NRF.
- The NRF will play a pivotal role in seeding, nurturing and promoting research, innovation and development across universities, colleges, research institutions, and R&D laboratories. It will create an interface mechanism so that, in addition to the scientific and line ministries, the state governments and industries can also participate and contribute to scientific R&D.
- The NRF’s budget will be about Rs 50,000 crore for the period 2023 to 2028. About 70 per cent of this budget will be obtained from the private sector as research investments; the remaining amount will come from the government.
Challenges:
- If governed and administered well, it will have a major positive impact on the science landscape of the country in 5-10 years. However, the devil is always in the details.
- Modalities of seeding, nurturing and promoting research by providing funds to less-endowed institutions and also monitoring outcomes should be transparent.
- A significant problem that the scientists have been facing is that proposed scientific projects are reviewed and sanctioned, but fund-release is often choppy.
- And, it has been choppy for many years. Projects that are sanctioned for funding for three years often do not receive the third year’s funds.
Percentage of GDP on R&D:
- India spends about 0.7 per cent of its GDP on R&D, lower than other BRICS countries China, over 2 per cent; Brazil and Russia more than 1 per cent; and, South Africa, 0.8 per cent. USA spends about 2.8 per cent; the global average is about 1.8 per cent.
- With the formation of NRF, a significant increase is expected; hopefully, in a few years India’s R&D expenditure will reach the global average. The lion’s share of the budget of NRF (more than 70 per cent) is expected to be borne by the industry.
Democratization of science funding:
- The NRF is also expected to promote democratisation of science funding and, funding to find scientific solutions to some big problems facing our society. However, it is important to ensure that basic research and small-scale research proposals are not brushed aside.
- Preparations are underway to merge some sets of government science institutions. Merging institutions under an umbrella may promote crucially important interdisciplinary research.
- It is hoped that with the mergers, support to some domains does not get badly reduced and that funds for mission-mode, mega projects, such as supercomputing and quantum computing, are not taken from the NRF budget; no funds will then be left for other research.
Way Forward:
- Unless good governance mechanisms to administer the centralised fund are evolved with adequate discussion with stakeholders, implemented from day one and executed under strong monitoring, the perils of centralisation will become evident. Progress of science will then take a beating.
- The NRF will also encourage young researchers who have gone abroad to do their PhD or post-doctoral work to return to India. Intellectual capital will increase. Opportunities to carry out high-quality science will flourish.
- If the caveats of centralisation of research funding are addressed before the NRF starts to function, a tsunami of scientific research and development will propel India to a technologically advanced state and hugely enhance our prosperity.
