Indian lawmakers greenlight National Research Foundation

India’s Parliament legally approved last week (9 August 2023) the establishment of a national body that would ensure equitable funding of research by maximizing funding support from the private sector. Scientists and science administrators welcomed the law's thrust on strengthening support for meagerly funded universities but were skeptical about how much private money the government can tap into.

The Anusandhan National Research Foundation Bill, 2023, paves the way for a National Research Foundation (NRF), modelled on the lines of the US National Science Foundation, to ramp up research funding across universities, colleges, institutes and laboratories. The bill aims to pump in 500 billion rupees (US$6 billion) over the next five years, 70% of which is expected to be sourced from non-government sources, industry, and philanthropists.

Low private sector funding for research is blamed for India's stunted spending on research and development (R&D) at 0.7% of its gross domestic product or roughly US$43 per person, one of the lowest allocations in the world. The lion’s share of research funding (about 60%) comes from government sources.

The NRF aims to increase the share allocated to state universities, presently overshadowed by larger institutions such as the Indian Institutes of Technology, according to Jitendra Singh, India's science and technology minister.

Shekhar Mande, former director general of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, says state universities do not stand a chance in India’s current competitive funding system. “The supporting mechanism for universities and colleges across India through NRF will give them a level playing field to access funds," he says.

Mande, however, does not expect an easy buy-in from the industry. "How do you convince the industry to put their money into an agency which is not their own?" he asks. Corporate Social Responsibility funds, which the private sector uses to currently fund science, are nominal, he points out.

In sectors such as quantum technology backed by the recently launched National Quantum Mission, NRF might help foster private funding for lab-to-market innovations, says quantum physicist Urbasi Sinha, a governing board member of the Quantum Ecosystems and Technology Council of India. "But are we mature enough to secure such a large quantum of financial support from the industry?" she asks.

Shailja Vaidya Gupta, a former adviser to India’s principal scientific advisor and its Department of Biotechnology, says the NRF bill deviates from India’s National Education Policy 2020, which states NRF will be "governed, independent of the government, by a rotating Board of Governors consisting of the very best researchers and innovators across fields." It mandates India's prime minister to preside over the governing board with other ministry officials. “The basic premise was that NRF would streamline science governance. If it were held at arm's length from the government, that would have been possible," says Gupta.

NRF replaces the Science and Engineering Research Board (SERB), which oversaw basic research funding in science, engineering, technology and mathematics (STEM). Additionally, NRF is mandated to fund scientific and technological interfaces in humanities and social sciences. Gupta fears this may dilute funding for basic research in STEM.

Madhavan Rajeevan, former secretary at India's earth sciences ministry, calls for NRF to be more accountable for increasing India's science budget.

SERB’s annual budget of about 10,000 million rupees, and a matching budget from government funding bodies such as ICAR, ICMR, and CSIR were able to support research in academic institutions and some laboratories. “The earth sciences ministry has minimal funding of about 600 million rupees. In total, research spending doesn’t go beyond 20,000 million rupees," Rajeevan says. NRF should ensure the overall science R&D budget goes beyond 1% of India’s GDP, where it has been hovering for a long time now, he added.

The scientific community should be made aware of the diverse elements NRF and opportunities for funding, says Dibyendu Nandi, head of the Center of Excellence in Space Sciences India at IISER-Kolkata. “It will also be useful to know the details of scientific proposal management that will impact us,” says Nandi.