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OCTOBER 2025

This was the foundation for their world-leading Strengthening the Governance and Financial
semiconductor industry today. Taiwan exported about Outlay of the R&D and Innovation System
US$165 billion worth of semiconductors in 2024. Taiwan
spends 3.0 per cent of its GDP on R&D compared to India’s India is aware of its underinvestment in R&D. The immediate
0.6 per cent.
focus should be to push gross domestic expenditure on
research and development (GERD) as a percentage of GDP
Nor is this transformation unique to one geography; from 0.6 per cent to at least 3.0 per cent. The industry should
mission-driven programs have repeatedly created take the lead in doing so. The Government of India has
spillovers that redefine entire industries. Perhaps the most introduced the Research, Development, and Innovation (RDI)
exemplary R&D project is the ARPANET project of ARPA Scheme, a significant initiative with a corpus of Rs 1 trillion
(Advanced Research Projects Agency), which was an aimed at catalysing private sector investment in research and
organization in the US’s Defense Department. ARPANET development. The scheme is designed to position India as a
exists today as the Internet, the technology that has global leader in innovation by fostering a robust ecosystem for
impacted the world like no other in the 20th century. The cutting-edge research in strategic and sunrise sectors. Our
various spin-offs over the decades from this R&D project recent mission-mode programs, like the National Mission on
are practically all the information and communications Interdisciplinary Cyber-Physical Systems (NM-ICPS) with
technologies we use today, and the USA still has the pole funding of Rs 37 billion, the National Quantum Mission (NQM)
position in this domain. with funding of Rs 60 billion, and IndiaAI with funding of Rs
103 billion, are examples of well-funded national programmes
The lessons from these examples are clear. India must use focused on translational research.
the power of a virtuous cycle – of R&D, spin-offs, and
wealth creation – to develop new domains and Funding and missions set the stage, but outcomes depend on
technologies that can significantly contribute to our what happens next – how quickly ideas traverse the last mile
national economy by making us more self-sufficient in from lab to market.
core technologies, creating jobs, and creating wealth.

We have done this in the past. India used to have a Nurturing the Capability for
significant mortality rate of children under five dying due Translational R&D
to rotavirus infection. India’s first indigenous vaccine is
Rotavac, a rotavirus vaccine that was developed using a To turn ambition into adoption, India must strengthen the
live rotavirus strain isolated from AIIMS (All India Institute translational machinery that connects researchers (from
of Medical Sciences) and productized by Bharat Biotech. It higher education institutions and labs), startups, MSMEs, and
costs US$1 per dose in India compared to about US$15 for industry around real-world problems. And create innovative
imported vaccines. Rotavac is now part of India’s products and solutions, especially in emerging technology and
Universal Immunization Programme and has reduced other deep-tech domains. The ecosystem should encourage
rotavirus deaths significantly since its inclusion. work on innovations through inter-organizational
collaborations in multidisciplinary technologies to solve
challenging real-life problems. Equally crucial is improving the
Rotavac proves India can convert deep science into
affordable impact; the imperative now is to make such ease of doing research so scientists spend more time on
outcomes systematic rather than exceptional. Important science than on paperwork.
aspects that require our immediate attention are to
strengthen the governance and funding for Indian R&D, to Organizations like the Biotechnology Industry Research
enhance our capability for translational R&D, support Assistance Council (BIRAC), Innovations for Defence
MSMEs to absorb latest technologies, and government Excellence (iDEX), etc. are at the forefront of leading our
becoming an anchor customer for translational R&D. efforts in translational R&D.
There are also sustained development programmes for
building foundational capability, offered by organizations like
India must harness the power of the Gopalakrishnan Deshpande Foundation (GDC) funded by
a virtuous cycle—combining science philanthropists. GDC has partnered with over 100
robust R&D, technology spin-offs, universities, research labs, and incubators across India to
develop the entrepreneurial quotient by training over 1,700
and wealth creation—to researchers and entrepreneurs and nurturing over 450
accelerate innovation, foster new deep-tech startups. Anusandhan National Research
industries, and build leadership in Foundation’s (ANRF) AI-for-Science initiative focuses on using
emerging domains and advanced AI to model scientific equations in physics, chemistry, and
biology. This is expected to drastically shorten the time it
technologies takes to translate theory into practice in scientific domains.

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