The National Research Foundation (NRF) Bill, 2023 has been approved by the Cabinet for introduction in the monsoon session of the Parliament. It has been largely welcome with some critical comments also emerging from the research community. The architects of the NRF Bill have claimed that the NRF emulates the model of National Science Foundation of United States. Although an in-depth scrutiny of the NRF Bill 2023 will have to wait, what is certain is that the proposed model of NRF does not address the challenges faced by the Indian scientific community. In fact, this Bill has a design which is potentially capable of making the future of Indian science and higher education only more vulnerable and will allow the foreign donors, corporate philanthropists and domestic big business to capture the research directions.
NRF-funded research will be opening new doors for corporates to establish merchants of doubt to delegitimise publicly funded science. The corporates would leverage the NRF to become the guardians of reason. The NRF projects will offer legitimacy to the evidence building for the creation of markets for their brave technological solutions to the problems of Indian poverty and sustainability. The NRF Bill, 2023 seeks to replace the publicly funded mechanism of research support to the scientific community through the Science and Engineering Board (SERB) Act, 2008 with a mechanism expected to be largely directed by the funds available through corporate sector and philanthropic foundations.
Not a national foundation for publicly funded research
The Union government is not willing to enhance the public funding for the support to research. Like the SERB Act, 2008, this Bill has also multiple objectives. The proposed structures of decision making are not only inappropriate but have the potential to destroy the publicness of publicly funded research. The NRF wishes to develop with private corporate funding research programmes which connect with needs of our society and identify key scientific questions, both basic science and application that have societal value. The detailed project report (DPR) issued for the NRF has plans to offer a large chunk of its support to the state universities. But the bill has chosen not to give a voice to the state councils of higher education and research. The block funding available to the State S&T Councils from the Ministry for Science and Technology has declined in a major way during the period of last ten years.
The Bill does not follow the principle of cooperative federalism and has no place for the representatives of state governments in the decision making structure. The proposed decision making structure does not match the objectives set in the DPR. It is flawed from the standpoint of the role of even the Union government. For example, the Bill does not enunciate the role and contribution of the relevant actors operating under the economic and social ministries in the NRF decision making structures. The Union government cannot advance the research of value for societal applications without the participation of economic and social sector ministries. There is also no role for the Central Public Sector Enterprises (CPSEs) in the decision making structure. India’s recent history of policymaking and legislations created by the Union Government on science and technology has been marked by remarkable announcements with results far below the expectations raised through the stated legislative and policy objectives. The
In the light of the recent most Indian institution building and policymaking experience on research and technology development, the NRF Bill 2023 is clearly in the need of a comprehensive evaluation from the Indian parliament. The additional support offered through budgetary resources of the Union government is meagre. In terms of the percentage of GDP, India’s spending on research and development is among the lowest in the world. In 2022, India only spent 0.65% of GDP on R&D. The average world expenditure on R&D is 1.8%. Those who have the dream of making India a developed nation need to note that developed nations such as the United States (2.9%), China (2.2%) and Israel (4.9%) spend far higher.
Among the BRICS nations India is at the bottom. For more than two decades now, the stated objective of the policies announced has been to allocate at least 2% of the national GDP on R&D. During the last two decades, not only was the target of 2% forgotten by the successive governments, the expenditure on research and development (R&D) was allowed to go down, from 0.8% at the start of the 2000s to about 0.65% now. India’s GERD at $43 per capita is one of the lowest in the world. India’s BRICS and ASEAN counterparts like Russia (285), Brazil (173) and Malaysia (293) fare much better.
The Indian parliamentarians need to realise that the government has not been able to get the Indian private corporate sector to increase the support for R&D to meet the target of 2% of GDP. The poor record of the private corporate sector owned by domestic capital with regard to the in-house facilities and funding for the recruitment of researchers has been clearly not encouraging. India’s business sector’s contribution to employment of R&D personnel is the second lowest in the top-ten global economies (Brazil being the lowest). In 2019, the contribution of Indian listed companies to the global corporate spending on R&D was merely 0.5%. This situation is despite the tax incentives for innovation having been more liberal than other economies. However, policymakers continue to recommend more concessions to get the corporate sector to step up investment in R&D.
Internal brain drain will aggravate
During the last two decades much of the recruitment of researchers was from the foreign subsidiaries exporting research, development and engineering (RDE) services to cater to the objectives laid down by the company headquarters located in United States, Europe, Japan and South Korea. The latest information brief (April 28, 2022) of the National Science Foundation (NSF) of the United States on Foreign R&D by US-based multinational corporations (MNCs) estimates a spending of $9.5 billion (Rs 649.7 billion) on R&D in India in 2018, which increased to $9.8 billion (Rs 690.2 billion) in 2019.
Close to 90% of the operating FDI receiving R&D units are not even registering with DSIR as R&D units. Location-wise FDI in R&D is scattered in a few states. The states that dominate are: Karnataka, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Tamil Nadu and NCR Delhi. Over two lakh of India’s S&T personnel are working for foreign R&D centres set up by US companies. The total number of S&T personnel working as researchers in India is just about five lakh. This means that over 40% of India’s total R&D personnel are directed from the headquarters of US companies. They do not work on the emerging R&D problems facing India.
The number of immigrant scientists and engineers from India increased to the US from five lakh in 2003 to 9.5 lakh in 2013. Even while the DST Fellowship programmes provide opportunities to Indian researchers residing in foreign countries to return and work in Indian universities, the number of people returning has been modest (243 during 2007-12 and 649 during 2012-17). The amount spent on importing technology from abroad in the form of the amount spent on royalty and technology licensing fees is rising. Most foreign companies are free to take out more foreign exchange than they have brought into India.
Unequal exchange will grow through neoliberal globalisation of research
Foreign companies are continuing to undertake screwdriver assembly of their proprietary products in India. This kind of FDI operations has been increasing the dependence of the country on imports with low value added exports giving a false signal about the performance of the Make in India programme. The increase in drain of foreign exchange has seen a manifold rise in the recent times. The ratio of the expenditure made on domestic technology development vis-à-vis technology import is declining. The ratio of 13.63 in 2000 has got reduced to 2.18 in 2018.
Bangalore alone accounts for about 64% of the patents granted by USPTO to Indian inventors working with MNCs. Most of the patents technology-wise are in computer implemented inventions. Many MNCs and particularly those from the USA use now India as a base for doing R&D and creating IPRs. IBM was granted 9,262 patents in 2019. A large number of granted patents were based on R&D conducted by the Indian affiliate of IBM. The foreign exchange outflow from the Maruti Suzuki Pvt Limited on account of R&D services rendered is one of the highest. The agribusiness story is no different.
Lack of R&D support for national development
The NRF will not be able to provide benefits for either manufacturing or technology absorption or S&T for economic development of national variety. The Government of India (GoI) spends close to Rs 14 lakh crore annually on development activities, through nearly 750 schemes implemented by Union Ministries. In 2019, the Development Monitoring and Evaluation Office (DMEO), NITI Aayog evaluated 125 Centrally Sponsored Schemes, under 10 Sectors, together covering close to 30% of the GoI’s development expenditure, amounting to approximately Rs 3 lakh crore per annum. The institutional inclusion of R&D in the scheme guidelines such as specific R&D budget, R&D modalities or directions to associated R&D institutions was found to be highly “inadequate”. Only 26 of the 111 schemes analysed had R&D funding and only 40 of them had any designated primary research organisation.
NRF will facilitate corporate capture
The future of Indian science for national development under NRF is vulnerable. The Bill Melinda Gates Foundations and many more international organisations will increase their penetration in to the development and use of science for applications of societal value. The corporates and international foundations will plant merchants of doubt, become guardians of reason and delegitimise publicly funded science and create markets for the solutions offered by them as magic bullets to the problems of development in India. They will use knowledge as their currency to colonise the process of development, seemingly philanthropic, benign and caring.
Structural voids in India’s research landscape unfilled
The NRF bill is not about block funding of research in the universities or the research institutions. It is about project funding. The NRF cannot take care of the challenge of sustaining the recruitment of teachers pursuing research. The current status of availability of human resources availability to do R&D is far more troublesome. In 2020, India has just 262 researchers per million inhabitants. China employs ten times more researchers per million inhabitants. Germany employs 6,995 researchers per million. In 2020, Republic of Korea topped the list with 8,714 researchers per million population in the world followed by Israel (8,342), Sweden (7,930), Denmark (7,692), Finland (7,527) and Singapore (7,287) during 2020.
The share of GERD in GDP declined from 0.40% (2013) to 0.37% (2018) in the government sector, and from 0.27% (2013) to 0.24% (2018) in the business enterprise sector. Although R&D expenditure increased nominally in the higher education sector (GERD as a percentage of GDP rose from .04% in 2013 to .05% in 2018, but full time equivalent (FTE) researchers in the higher education sector declined from 39.96% in 2015 to 36.48% in 2018. Researchers employed in the government sector declined from 30.32% in 2015 to 23.13% in 2018. India has nearly 40,000 institutions of higher education and over 1200 of these are full-fledged universities. Only 1% of these engage in active research.
NRF is a new layer in structural adjustment
The institutional logic of NRF is not a clean break with the post-reform S&T policymaking. Presumably the NRF Bill, 2023 is required to attract the funds from industry and philanthropy. The NRF seeks to replace the Science and Engineering Board (SERB). It came into existence in 2008 through the act of the Indian parliament. Like the SERB Act, 2008 the NRF Bill 2023 is also armed with multiple objectives without the corresponding institutional arrangements for the identification and implementation of research for all types of S&T structures required to be fostered to promote indigenous technology, scientific development and transformations in the system of knowledge creation, dissemination and utilisation.
The Government of India (GoI) spends close to Rs 14 lakh crore annually on development activities, through nearly 750 schemes implemented by Union Ministries. In 2019, the Development Monitoring and Evaluation Office (DMEO), NITI Aayog evaluated 125 Centrally Sponsored Schemes, under 10 sectors, together covering close to 30% of the GoI’s development expenditure, amounting to approximately Rs 3 lakh crore per annum. The institutional inclusion of R&D in the scheme guidelines such as specific R&D budget, R&D modalities or directions to associated R&D institutions was found to be highly “inadequate”. Only 26 of the 111 schemes analysed had R&D funding and only 40 of them had any designated primary research organisation.
For the NRF to succeed and develop with the required funding arrangements for the creation of research programmes which would connect with needs of contemporary society and tackle the key scientific questions facing us in terms of, both basic science and application that have societal value it is clear that the decision making apparatus of the NRF must be different. Like the SERB Act, the NRF Bill has also claimed to support conceptually new directions, even when risky and simultaneously develop the R&D landscape for societal applications. The executive decisions of the NRF will be guided by a steering committee composed of 15-25 distinguished researchers and professionals. The decision making structure for the NRF is going to be far more centralised and concentrated. The NRF has the possibility of reducing the scale and scope of fund available for multiple sources of research and innovation initiatives.
NRF will enhance centralisation
The prime minister will chair the governing body. Experience shows that this can be a regressive change. It does not guarantee joint planning of the DST or the PSA with either the line departments or the state governments. The experience of implementation of NEP 2020 provides sufficient evidence of why the NRF will not be transformative. There will be centralisation of the directions of research when the country needs to cultivate diversity and plurality in research. Diversity and plurality will suffer. The pre-reform period S&T had greater success due to the multiple sources of research initiatives and the certainty of funds from the government for block as well as project funding.
Among the stated objectives of the NRF, the NRF Bill, 2023 wishes to enhance the funding support to state universities for research in a bigger way than ever before. IITs have been the major recipients of Science and Engineering Research Board (SERB) funding. Presently the state universities account for a mere 3% of research expenditure. Rashtriya Uchhatar Siksha Abhiyan (RUSA) introduced the state higher education councils to correct the state of health of the state universities. The NRF has no possibility of involving either the state higher education councils or the line ministries of the Union government. The NRF is about project funding. The need of the hour is block funding in the case of state systems of higher education.
The cooperative federalism needs joint planning of the existing privileged S&T structures with the state governments, economic and social ministries and higher education institutions. The NRF is centralising decision making on research. Corporates and elite institutions will have an edge. This will ultimately undermine the possibility of harnessing the energy of multiple sources of initiatives. Joint planning is a more effective way of realising diversity and plurality of missions in the world threatened by climate change and inequality. Given the lack of culture of collaboration, societal problems-oriented research is going to be a significant challenge for the universities. As a result, most of the research being carried out in Indian higher education institutions has been of disciplinary orientation rather than of multidisciplinary and inter-disciplinary orientation. Translational research is a challenging task. Innovation is not research. It is more than science and technology. It is connected with the challenge of linking science and technology with the needs of the society.
It is apparent that the lobbyists have succeeded. The private corporate sector wants to use the government sector as a subordinate servicing facility and not a collaborator in the endeavour to develop technology and science compatible with common good. The Union government has not been willing to use the central public sector enterprises (CPSEs) for the development of strategic capabilities for manufacturing and technology development. The Make in India programme and the Production Linked Incentives based industrial policy have no place for the contribution of CPSEs.
The research and technology development (RTD) activities of the NRF are designed to be funded only in a limited way by the government. It will be largely dependent on the private sector and philanthropic funding sources. The funding structure will seek the establishment of a stronger intellectual property mechanism of the Bayh-Dole kind which has been resisted by the academic institutions. The NRF needs to bring together the states, line ministry, public sector and private sector through a mechanism capable of promoting joint planning between these important actors without whom the NRF will be again a failure like the SERB.
NRF needs greater public investment, larger social control and community participation
Adequate investment in R&D is a precondition to India becoming self-reliant in technology and be a future global technology leader. Without a robust indigenous R&D environment, India will not be able to attract investment, both domestic and overseas, that will enable the country to take the lead in cutting-edge technologies which can be put to use in strategic fields including overall socio-economic development. Seventy per cent of the allocation of Rs. 50,000 crores for NRF supported R&D will have to come from the private sector. There is no mechanism in the NRF Bill to ensure this support. The private sector contribution is only a notional commitment known to the Prime Minister and the S&T and Education Ministers.
It is apparent that the PSA has lost the battle within the government. But what is ironical that the Union government has had no hesitation in allocating Rs 2 lakh under the PLI scheme for providing subsidies to profit-earning private companies in the name of giving a boost to production in strategic areas. Neither the sectoral PLI schemes do not link subsidies to beneficiary companies fulfilling such specific outcomes as generating commensurate levels of employment opportunities, ensuring net domestic value addition etc. If at all those beneficiary companies bring in technologies into India, they will be subject to intellectual property rights, making it inaccessible for national application. Even under the NRF, private-sector funding to the extent of 70% would result in private-sector companies claiming intellectual property rights, which would in turn fail to build indigenous technological strength.
Compel the cabinet to create a transparent bill
The Standing Committee on S&T, Environment and Forests should be asked to invite the representatives of higher education teaching community, research scientists associated with the higher education institutions (HEIs) governed by the Union and State governments, research scientists working at the governmental research institutions (GRIs). The standing committee should hold an open transparent consultation with the researchers and the users through national and state level round tables involving researchers and users. The uses of results of publicly funded R&D go far beyond the use of research results by the sections of large private sector firms.
Lessons from the pre-reform S&T are clear
The collaboration of Central Public Sector Enterprises (CPSEs) with the GRIs and HEIs and the social movements and trade unions has played a major role in the development of technology and research directions in the past in many domains including health, environment, livelihood protection and agricultural development. The CPSEs should play a pivotal role in being vehicles for the transfer of R&D benefits from academic institutions to application to strategic areas of manufacturing. Deliberations on the National Research Foundation (NRF) Bill 2023 should give the representatives of state governments and line ministries and CEOs of CPSEs and state sector PSUs, state universities and other relevant actors to make their submissions to the Standing Committee of the parliament.
All the relevant actors should be invited to make their suggestions regarding the principles of governance of the processes of allocation of public funds to basic sciences, research for technology development, research for technology implementation and research for societal regulation of commercial activities and governmental interventions in respect of the protection of employment and livelihoods, worker and citizen safety, health, environment and disaster prevention.
Create statutory targets
The NRF budget target should be higher. The parliament should fix a sum of 5% of the development expenditure of Union government and 5% of the gross value of high tech industries. The targets should not garner less than Rs 30,000 crore per annum. The private funds shall be accepted only when there are no strings attached. The NRF should prioritise projects going to higher education institutions, government research institutions, civil society organisations, cooperative industrial R&D and projects catering to technology development for economic, social and ecological justice.
Provide space for public engagement
The NRF’s research evaluation mechanisms should include the provisions for public engagement for a limited period of time prior to the approval of proposals through the development of a system of open listing of the abstracts of proposals and a system of open engagement of the scientific community with all the different users of research for their comments. Research evaluation should not be limited to the existing system of closed peer reviews and involve the users to accelerate the use of knowledge generated by the researchers through public funding.
[Dinesh Abrol is Chief Scientist (Retd) CSIR-NISTADS, Professor (Retd) ISID, Convener, Peoples’ Commission on Public Sector and Public Services, AIPSN and DSF. Courtesy: The Wire.]
