"In last 30 years or so the universities have seen neglect, which is at the root of the problem of science base and strength." 

Where does our science research stand currently? Should rise of China in science concern us? How should we take MNCs harnessing our R&D potential for their benefit? What could we do for enhancing our industrial in-house R&D? These are some of the issues that concern the onlookers of science and technology scene in the country.

Dr. P. Ramarao, former secretary, Dept. of Science and Technology, GoI, and more recently, Chairman of the Committee that evaluated the functioning of the DRDOs in the country, shared some of his thoughts on these issues with http://www.rndindia.info 

Excerpts from the interview: 

 

There is a lot of hype about the Indian R&D prowess. Success seems to be in contract R&D as it happens to biotech, pharma or IT sectors. This is coming at the cost of traditional scientific research with national labs. Is this a trend to be happy about?

There is actually a concern and not hype. Let me correct the impression about contract research. Barring a few exceptions the concept of contract research has not taken off in our country. Most of the research is carried out in our own institutions and national laboratories. DRDO, which today manages over 50 laboratories, CSIR about 40 laboratories, DAE supports half a dozen research institutions which are autonomous like TIFR, Tata Memorial Centre, Institute of Physics in Bhubaneswar, to cite a few examples. Thanks to Baba’s vision, BARC is a mammoth center of research, and encompasses a wide spectrum of disciplines

We should be happy about research accomplishment in any segment of our research based institutions, whether they be in-house R&D in industry, national laboratories or universities/academic institutions. I must also point out that not withstanding what you say of some successes in R&D in pharma & IT sector, by and large, in-house industrial R&D in our country does not stand in comparison to their counterparts in industrial nations such as the US, Europe and Japan. Because of the enhanced appreciations of benefits of research by pharma, IT and automotive component industry. The overall investment by the industry on R&D has gone up from about less than 15% prior to 1991 to over 25% of total R&D expenditure in the country today. We should be happy about this trend and encourage industry to invest even more in R&D. In Japan 80% of R&D expenditure comes from in-house industry research. It is thus that R&D of Japan has made a significant contribution to the growth of the economy. 

We are far behind in several science measures: impact factor of science publications; patents count. Has Indian Science reached saturation point?

Let me state that the scientific output in the country, namely journal articles as well as the number of patents is steadily raising. However, the rate of increase of these numbers is way below the growth of outputs from countries such as China, South Korea etc. Consequently Indian rank has come down. At one time, in the early 1990s, India’s rank in regard to science publication was within ten. Although I am unable to give you the exact position of the country, it has definitely slipped to a rank more than 15. The reason for this is not because Indian science has reached saturation, but because we have not kept pace with the countries we are competing such as China and others. 

Our universities have failed to enthuse quality S&T research, barring a few central universities. Our strategy has been to start a few Indian Institutes of Science Education and Research. By not broad basing the science research are we again falling into elitist trap?

This is an important question as it focuses on our universities. Quite a few of the issues that is raised in the context of decline of science in the country can find answer in what I would consider the most worrisome aspect of Indian research. It has to be appreciated that young students in universities carry out the bulk of research, in particular open-ended science research. Indian universities had a share of almost 100% of science research output of our country in the past—say three decades ago. That share has fallen to less than 10% at the present time. In the last 30 years or so, the universities have seen neglect, which is at the root of the problem of science base and strength. Over two-third of our universities are state universities funded by the state governments. With the enfeebling of the state finances the state governments have simply do not have the resources to nurture and build up research in the universities. With progressive elimination of state support, today we are faced with a depressing scenario. This is manifest in the university leadership having lost the will to devote attention to research. 

Many of the institutions, which are now coming up in recent times, are self-financed. These institutions, barring a few, are so poorly endowed that their main concern is earning money to sustain and grow teaching activities, again a source of revenue, but with absolutely no concern for encouragement for research. I would rank different categories of our institutions in regard to research output in the following order: IISC; IITs and institutions of national importance; Central Universities and a few of the state universities. The rest of our academic institutions cannot be counted in this research league. We should take heart from recent initiative in setting up IISER, more central universities and quality institutions like the IITs.

We have given a lot of sops for industrial in-house R&D, yet less than one-tenth of the public / private companies have meaningful R&D activities. How could this issue be addressed?

I have addressed this to some extent earlier. The Government of India has taken some measures to encourage in-house R&D. Those R&D units of the industry that have qualified themselves for recognition as R&D Units in terms of the criteria set up by the DSIR, have been provided incentives. The two most important kinds of incentives are - facilitating these R&D units to import equipment for laboratories and offering them tax incentives for the amounts they spend on R&D. [The latest list of incentives can be found from DSIR website] These are some ways we have addressed the problem of inadequate in-house R&D. The sustainable way is for the industry themselves to reap benefits from their investment. Pharma industry must be credited for their R&D efforts by investing more than 5 percent of their turnover. They are also employing research-qualified persons. These trends have occurred because of the stipulations of the WTO. Be that as it may, the example of pharma industry is to be emulated. Currently the IT industry has appreciated that in order for them to go up the value chain they must turn to research based personnel and development of new products whether in software or hardware development. My answer is simply the key lies in the industry itself becoming aware of the value of such R&D and their aspirations for becoming genuine global leaders in their domain.

Defense and space have largest R&D allocation that is envied in some quarters. Have the direct and indirect benefits from this sector commensurate this investment?

I have no hesitation in stating that because of the substantially large amounts of investments India can be looked up as an equal to the advanced countries in areas of satellite technologies and selected fields of strategic R&D in which DRDO and DAE are engaged. It has to be noted that today India has demonstrated its capability to design, build, operate and maintain 700+mwe pressurized heavy water reactors. It is also noteworthy that these reactors are fueled by world-class U02 based fuel extracted from the world’s poorest Uranium ores (tapped for this purpose) with around 0.05% of metal content. These are phenomenal achievements, which have come about not only because of adequate allocation but also because of the culture of carefully focused course. Since I have recently had the opportunity of studying defense research in depth I would have much more to say about this, but I will reserve it for another day.

Budget allocation to S&T has shown a steady growth. The impression one gets is that we do not have capacity, in terms of motivated science manpower, to absorb the allocations. Is this the concern shared by the science leadership in the country?

What you appear to have noticed in the allocation, for all I know, may be the case. The reason is not far behind to seek which is in my response to university research. The Dept. of Science and Technology is the only agency which funds basic research across disciplines and across institutions. I know for a fact that the leaders of these agencies have been anxious to invest as much as possible in the university system. With the decline of university research, that I have pointed earlier, the number of takers from this what should have been single largest consumer of open-ended research has suffered. If there is one area where we have to pay maximum attention for making scientific research viable, clearly it is university research. We have in the country, at present, more than 370 universities, and over 18,000 colleges. Given this framework if we can populate and motivate quality researchers, India will have no difficulty in increasing research output. Actually, I would suggest this course should be taken up in a mission mode, in the same way as India promoted space and nuclear research.

China is stealing the show even in science and technology. Do we have to be concerned about this?

I have answered this in someway earlier. China is able to massively invest in research of various kinds because of its rise as an economic power. From what I can see, India’s notable economic growth should also be accompanied by commensurate involvement in research endeavors by the industry. That is bound to have a cascading effect across our institutions. I must say, however, that from the trends that one sees that there is no chance of India matching China’s growth in science research in the next four to five years.

MNCs have succeeded in harnessing the capabilities of Indian scientists and technologist. Is this a commentary on running of our science system? 

MNCs have set a trend. Instead of worrying about this trend Indian institutions should learn to compete intelligently. The number of people that MNCs can attract or their total capacity for harnessing Indian capabilities in sciences is relatively very small compared to the large base of our science institutions, Let MNCs do what they can. We have much to do in setting our own house in order in our institutions. It is this we should concentrate on. When we do this imaginatively and purposefully, MNCs can not poach with these institutions or even compete with them because of their relative small size. This fact is even now manifest in the way IISc is able to retain its recruited faculty. They are not leaving IISc for anything else as they truly enjoy the freedom to pursue research of their interest and also the freedom with which they function. These are not available in MNCs for obvious reasons. It is important, however, that we take more and more measures to compensate our faculty and research scholars and post-doctoral fellows far more than what we are giving today. 

What can we expect in the Science and technology sector in the foreseeable future?

This question is too broad to give simple answers. Even so let me say the following: We are bound to see growing investment in R&D by industry. The pharma, biotech, automotive and IT industries will turn to advanced research more and more in the years to come. They are truly international competitors and would like to remain and for this they would invest in R&D based product development. I will also safely say that Indian presence in strategic research will also become stronger. India has been a target country for quite a few of technology control regimes. I see a strong political will in building up the strong capabilities in strategic areas of space, defence and atomic energy. There is a wide spread appreciation of need for this country to be strong and self-reliant in strategic areas and I can forecast growing capabilities in S&T in these areas. My confidence in stating arises from what we have seen as a cultural characteristic of our people where it concerns the security of India, every one including scientists are willing to sacrifice and contribute to country’s progress and so therefore S&T scene is likely to brighten up. The final two areas where I see strong motivation for building a better future is agriculture and rural S&T. I find that many leaders in the government, industries and in S&T are talking more and more with the great deal of sincerity on rejuvenating agricultural R&D, as well as defusing S&T capabilities in non-urban areas. Some achievements such as e-chaupal, which has been successful, have activated awareness of the benefits of technology in rural communities. The manner in which the common man has taken up to the mobile telephone is a case in point. If technology has to travel to rural areas such penetration can happen only when it is based on indigenous technology. The development of vaccines in our country such as one for Hepatitis B has demonstrated how the costs can be phenomenally lowered through indigenous technology development. The cost per pediatric dose of this vaccine was over Rs.1, 000 not long ago and today it is less than Rs.30 and millions of doses have been made available with phenomenal impact on public health. I hope that digital devices will also come about through indigenous technology with consequent deductions in cost their widespread use in our country is bound to increase. This is beginning to be seen. I would expect this to build up to the foreseeable future.

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