Microsoft executive and IIT-Madras alumni to head India’s top research funding body

ANRF was set up through an Act of Parliament in 2023, with two broad objectives — increasing the research base in the country, particularly in universities and colleges, and ensuring greater availability of money for scientific research.

Scientific research, as of now, is confined mainly to the few centrally-funded research institutions such as the laboratories of CSIR, IITs, IISERs, TIFR or the Indian Institute of Science. Very little research happens in the universities. According to one estimate, just about 1 per cent of the nearly 40,000 higher education institutions in the country — the state universities and colleges — are currently engaged in active research.

Similarly, the funding for research and development has been stuck at about 0.7 per cent of the GDP for several years now, though it has seen a substantial increase in absolute terms. This is well below the global average of about 1.8 per cent. Leading scientific countries invest well over 2 per cent of their GDP on R&D.

The ANRF has been tasked to strengthen the overall research ecosystem in the country, bringing together the research laboratories, educational institutions, and private sector companies, and get them to collaborate on the biggest questions of science, with a special emphasis on finding technology solutions for India’s developmental problems. An important objective is to incentivise private sector funding for R&D.

The government had been looking for an outside professional with a research background to head ANRF to bring varying kinds of perspectives. Kalyanaraman, who completed his BTech in computer science from IIT Madras, has previously worked with General Electric, and has experience in areas like energy and utilities, artificial intelligence and telecom.

He has produced more than 200 peer-reviewed technical papers, and has 35 patents in his name, according to his profile on LinkedIn.