Streamlining India's R&D Funding System

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Key takeaways

India's Gross Expenditure on R&D (GERD) remains stagnant at 0.6% to 0.8% of GDP, falling behind global leaders like Israel (~5%) and the US (3.5%).
Over 80% of research grants from the Anusandhan National Research Foundation (ANRF) flow to IITs, causing severe resource deficits in state universities.
India has only 262 full-time researchers per million people, compared to nearly 5,000 in the US and UK.
To eliminate duplicate funding and bureaucratic delays, NITI Aayog recommended launching the Unified Project Management System (UPMS) along with Persistent Digital Identifiers (PIDs).

A recent NITI Aayog report titled 'Ease of Doing R&D in India' has spotlighted major gaps in the country's research funding setup.
The report emphasizes the critical need for a centralized system to track funding recipients, disbursing agencies, research goals, and existing grant overlaps.

India's Gross Expenditure on R&D (GERD) remains stagnant between 0.6% and 0.8% of GDP, falling far behind global leaders like Israel (~5%), the US (3.5%), and China (2.4%).
Research funding is severely concentrated in top-tier institutions, with over 80% of Anusandhan National Research Foundation (ANRF) funds going to IITs, leaving state universities underfunded.
Private sector participation remains low compared to advanced economies where private industry funds over 70% of research, despite recent private spending crossing the 50% mark in India.
India faces a severe human capital shortage with only 262 full-time researchers per million people, compared to nearly 5,000 in the US and UK.
Excessive administrative procedures force scientists to waste valuable time on bureaucracy instead of focusing on active research.

Complex administrative procedures and a general trust deficit cause funding approval delays of 3 to 6 months, while strict year-end financial rules disrupt ongoing projects.
Central funding agencies like DST, DBT, CSIR, and ICMR work in isolated silos, leading to duplicate research grants that waste thousands of crores annually.
Dispersed grant information across unstandardized databases makes it impossible for automated systems to recognize that names like IISc, Bangalore and Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru refer to the same entity.
The absence of a centralized national dashboard leaves funding agencies, scholars, and the public without visibility into who receives research grants and for what purpose.

The European Union utilizes the CORDIS platform to centralize data on EU-funded projects, tracking publications, organization profiles, and project outcomes.
The United Kingdom operates the Gateway to Research portal, providing public access to track national research projects and funding details.
The global Crossref Grant Linking System assigns Persistent Identifiers (PIDs) to research grants, successfully registering over 2 lakh grants worldwide.
Global systems use standardized IDs like Funder IDs, ROR IDs for institutions, ORCIDs for researchers, and grant DOIs to make funding data machine-readable and prevent costly duplicate grants.

Assigning a unique, machine-readable Persistent Digital Identifier (PID) to every grant would connect funding records to researchers, publications, and patent outcomes.
Implementing NITI Aayog's proposed Unified Project Management System (UPMS) would streamline research project planning, funding, monitoring, and evaluation across ministries.
The UPMS platform needs to integrate standardized metadata and PIDs to effectively track duplicate funding and resource concentration.
Connecting Indian funding agencies directly to global non-profit networks like Crossref will increase the international visibility of Indian scientific research.
The government should direct the ANRF to legally reserve a fixed share of funding for state universities and colleges to balance out institutional inequality.
Rapidly deploying the newly approved Research, Development, and Innovation (RDI) Fund can offer low-interest loans and equity to deep-tech startups, reducing risk for private investors.
India should commit to a clear fiscal target to raise its Gross Expenditure on R&D (GERD) from 0.65% to at least 2% of GDP.
Public initiatives like PM Fellowships and corporate research sponsorships can raise social recognition and support for young scientists.
Enacting a statutory framework for R&D spending, similar to the FRBM framework, would guarantee stable and predictable public research funding.

Transforming India's R&D ecosystem requires administrative reforms, transparent digital tracking, and decentralization rather than simply increasing spending.
Adopting digital identifiers and flexible funding mechanisms will reduce waste, empower state universities, and link academic research directly with industry needs.

The Unified Project Management System (UPMS) is a platform proposed by NITI Aayog to unify research planning, grant allocation, and project evaluation across government bodies.
Persistent Digital Identifiers (PIDs) are unique tags linked with standard metadata to identify research grants, funding agencies, and project durations digitally.
Digital tools like ORCID identify individual researchers while ROR identifies research organizations, enabling seamless tracking across databases.
The Anusandhan National Research Foundation (ANRF) aims to expand India's innovation base by channeling research support to universities beyond traditional centers.
The Research, Development and Innovation (RDI) Fund supports deep-tech startups and innovative companies through low-cost loans and equity instruments.