Opinion Express View on National Research Foundation: Changing the game

The Union cabinet’s decision to set up a National Research Foundation (NRF) — an apex body to promote, fund and mentor scientific research in higher education institutions across the country — is immensely welcome. The absence of a congenial ecosystem has meant that Indian scientists today work in silos and the research output of only a few select institutes matches up to global standards. The NRF could be a game-changer. It aims to “impact Indian universities, colleges, research institutions, and R&D laboratories”. Colleges and most universities are today seen as centres of knowledge dissemination, while specialised institutions are tasked with undertaking research. The NEP 2020 envisions a change in this state of affairs by making all higher education institutions teaching- as well as research-intensive. This requires addressing a dissonance: On the one hand, elite institutions nurture talents who go on to occupy top positions in industry and academia, across the world. On the other hand, colleges, universities and polytechnics wage a grim struggle for expertise, funds and infrastructure. By becoming a bridge between the two and enabling the top varsities to hand-hold the less well-heeled institutions, the NRF could help accomplish one of the NEP’s more difficult tasks.

The proposed agency intends to “forge collaboration between the industry, academia, government departments, and research institutions”. Such partnerships have resulted in some of the groundbreaking developments in the global knowledge economy. In India, however, scientists in even the top institutes face bureaucratic hurdles in raising money. The NRF could help catalyse change. But it will have its task out. The agency intends to raise 50 per cent of its next five years’ budget, of Rs 50,000 crore, from the private sector. That might not be easy in an economy that has just about recovered from the blows of the Covid pandemic. The NRF’s success in democratising the knowledge production ecosystem could hinge a lot on the incentives it offers to its private partners.

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From making the country’s manufacturing sector competitive to cleaning rivers, from weather-proofing agriculture to designing smart cities and from developing antidotes to emerging diseases to nurturing cutting-edge digital innovations, the demands before Indian science are myriad. In underlining the need to make research sensitive to the “concerns of rural areas,” the NRF project seems alive to these imperatives. It is modelled on the National Science Foundation in the US which has been a research enabler in areas as diverse as oceanography, space research, material sciences, computerisation and AI. The director of the “independent federal agency” is appointed by the US president, and confirmed by the Senate. But it also draws on 50,000 independent experts every year to assess the projects its supports. The top positions in the NRF board are reserved for members of the government, including the PM and the ministers of science, technology and education. The dominant presence of the government is perhaps unavoidable given the significance it has attached to the agency. But while drawing up the fine print of the NRF Bill — likely to be introduced in Parliament’s monsoon session — the government should take care to ensure the institution’s autonomy.