Bridging the void: Innovation from paper to people

India has made significant strides in recent years in terms of economic growth and technological advancement. However, there is still a long way to go in terms of becoming a major player in the global research and development (R&D) landscape. The challenges on the way, although daunting, can be overpowered if we get our act together. It is imperative to know the challenges if we are to look for solutions.

India’s share of R&D spending with respect to its global counterparts has been and continues to be abysmal. The contrast other than in the spending numbers also lies in the nature of funding. While scientifically advanced nations rely on funds, for R&D, from private organisations and corporations as well, R&D in India has for decades been purely state-funded. Because of this, funds are limited to only early-stage techs and innovations. Even though the government has increased its R&D spending in recent years, we still lag behind other major economies such as China and the United States. We need to increase R&D spending to at least 2% of GDP, in line with the global average. An increase in public funding of R&D will spur private spending as well, as there is a direct correlation between public and private funding in R&D.

Since a coordinated effort between academia and industry remains absent and research & development activities in India have purely been associated with academia, only a handful of innovations find their way to the mainstream or commercialisation. This results in a very slow rate of technology adoption if not the collapse of innovations at the lab level and after a certain period of time researchers are happy with just publishing papers. The subtext here is that although the government can encourage the private sector to spend more on Research and Development by increasing its own share of expenditure, it alone can not fund all the R&D or bring innovations from the lab to market. Only a larger collaboration consisting of government, public bodies, private organisations, and corporations can provide a sustainable and thriving ecosystem where research and innovations get translated into reality.

Public bodies like municipal corporations and pollution control boards etc. make an important part of the said larger collaboration as they happen to be the ultimate end users of environmental and sustainability-related technologies. The onboarding of such public bodies will not only expedite the adoption of homegrown innovations, aimed at addressing some of the most pressing concerns of our time like environmental problems but will also democratise their use. It will also likely pave the way for public bodies to gain the appetite to pay for homegrown innovations. There is a need for end users, corporates, and government agencies to realise that they have to invest in a co-creation model where private industry players and researchers can collaborate to either get technology transfers or create a mechanism where homegrown technologies keep getting adopted and innovations are brought from labs to market. Industry players would eventually have to increase their own R&D spending but till that happens, they can play a pivotal role in the creation and adoption of mid-TRL (Technology Readiness Levels) technologies.

Any larger effort is incomplete without the participation of the masses. There are many pressing concerns like air pollution, waste management, water security, etc., the solutions for which are beyond the scope of science and technology interventions alone and require larger socio-economic models. Community engagement and awareness drives bring the solutions closer to implementation and all the stakeholders together. However, such models need to have an end objective aligning or in conjunction with the vision and operating mechanisms of local government bodies.

India is brimming with untapped potential. Sufficient funding coupled with a larger participatory model can turn India into a global powerhouse of cutting-edge technologies. Innovations that remain on paper imply only good intentions. What we as a nation need is substantial groundwork- propelling innovations from the paper to the people. Our collaborative efforts are what will get us to an Atmanirbhar Bharat. The sooner we discern this, the faster our transition to a developed economy will be.

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