R&D Fund Mapping Problem

• NITI Aayog Report - Easte of Doing R&D in India found that nearly 80% of ANRF funding is concentrated in IIT
• research data is trapped in isolated, department specific databases using unstructured free text, making it virtually impossible to assess funding concentration, measure real research outcomes or detect redundant grants
• IIT eat up disproportionate amount of funding, leaving other state uni, smaller insti underfunded
• low GERD: 0.6-0.8% of GDP
  • USA: 3.5%
  • China: 2.4%
  • Israel: 5%
• Human capital deficit: 262 full time researcher per Million people
  • US/UK: 5000 per Million people
  • In india, even these 262 per million, spend significant time dealing with administrative red tape
• Grants don’t have Persistent Digital Identifier (PID) in india
  • every PID should carry details - funding agency, receipent, amount, grant duration, domain, expected outcomes
  • automated PID linking with published reserach
  • global PID architecture
    • Grant DOI (digital object identifier)
    • ORCID (Open Researcher and Contributor ID)

Challenges with Indian R&D funding ecosystem

• fragmented & siloed agency databases (DST, DBT, CSIR, DAE, ICMR)
• absence of central duplicate screening
• marginalisation of state universities
• burdensome administrative bureaucracy
• lack of mandatory outcome reporting

Way Forward

• utilize NITI Aayog’s Unified Project Management System as single entry point to disburse grants
• emulate UK’s Gateway To Research and EU’s CORDIS model to combine sovereign data ownership with global metadata interoperability
• legally ring fence funds for state universities, to de-concentrate away from IIT
• mandate machine readable grant attribution through PID
• enact statutory R&D expenditure targets, atleast 2% of GDP