Making India R&D Super Power

[mayankkrishna]

There is an emerging need for India to ramp up its R&D Infrastructure. There are multiple emerging factors that seems to be suggesting that our resources should be streamlined towards enhancing our R&D effectiveness as early as possible.

Following are various emerging factors, that India should immediately take note of and pursue enhancing R&D sector for our economic & strategic interests.

1. Rapidly Emerging China

• China is investing heavily to create an innovation infrastructure that will allow it to develop, commercialize and market advanced technology-based products, moving beyond its established position as a low-cost location for manufacturing.
• China is investing heavily to create an innovation infrastructure that will allow it to develop, commercialize and market advanced technology-based products, moving beyond its established position as a low-cost location for manufacturing.
• Professional perspectives of China’s leadership are influential in science and innovation policy: eight of the nine members of China’s Standing Committee of the Political Bureau have engineering degrees.
• China is expanding its science and technology infrastructure through investments in its academic research institutions, the Chinese Academy of Sciences and its industrial research firms.
• China recognizes the leverage available through international collaboration. Many of China’s R&D programs involve collaborations with European and/or U.S. research organizations. According to the Battelle/R&D Magazine Global Researcher Survey, about a third of China’s advanced R&D is pursued in collaboration with U.S. Research rganizations, and about a quarter in collaboration with European research organizations.

 

[mayankkrishna]

• China is likely to continue two-decade trajectory in R&D, consistent with current Five-Year Plan
• China’s research intensity will increase to 1.95% of GDP in 2014.
• China’s FYP is aimed at achieving 2.2% of GDP by 2015.
• China strives to transition from manufacturing economy to being “innovation-driven” by 2020.
• At current rates of R&D investment and economic growth,
• China could surpass the U.S. in total R&D spending by about 2022.
• China is the only country among top ten, to have increased R&D spend currently over 18% from 10% in 2011 of global.
• US, China and Japan spend over half of the total on R&D
• India’s R&D spend of global, remain unchanged between 2012-14 at 2.7%

 

[Srinivas_K]

First we need good manufacturing base and consistent GDP growth, R&D is the next step !

But in parallel we should also start venturing into R&D.

 

[mayankkrishna]

Agreed, but there is lot of laggardness in the existing R&D infrastructure, that is leading our efforts nowhere.

India has a huge domestic demand. This demand can cater to both low technology as well as high technology manufacturing.

It is well founded fact that technology cannot survive without innovation and upgradation. Competition can kill our engineering sector if we do not focus on our technology sector.

Although India is targeting to double its share in world trade from 1.7% to 3.5% by 2020. The existing export commodities, except some, have reached a point where elasticity is less in the export market. For long, majority share of India’s engineering export basket is made up of raw materials with little value addition. Therefore, there is a need to promote and develop newer products.This can be achieved by technology upgradation of certain key value added productswhich are having significant export potential.

 

[mayankkrishna]

India in R&D

• India's share of global R&D spending rose to 2.7 per cent in 2013 from 2.6 per cent in 2012 and is forecasted to be at 2.7 per cent in 2014.
• MNC R&D centers distribution in India Bengaluru has 39 per cent of MNC R&D centers, followed by Mumbai and Pune at 19 per cent.
• The key driver of R&D activity in India is large multinational companies (MNCs).
• MNCs are setting up dedicated and independent R&D centers for taking up R&D activities in new and emerging research in high tech areas.
• India is one of the cheapest R&D destinations with highly talented engineers.
• These increasing R&D establishments either serve the local market or help the parent company deliver new generation of products faster to the global market.
• Telecom, consumer electronics, automation and automotive are the top verticals with MNC R&D base in India.
• Embedded systems related work growing fast
• Automotive, healthcare, power and security driving the demand in semiconductors

 

[mayankkrishna]

Deterrents for Effective R&D in India

• Local deterrents: Talent crunch, lack of adequate physical infrastructure, not-soencouraging industry-academia interface
• Engineering institutes in India should impart postgraduate education in technologies relevant for the India market, like energy efficiency, automotive safety and security
• The government should provide encouraging tax incentives to help companies grow their R&D labs here
• Less than 10% of patents owned by Indian companies in India. Majority owned by MNCs
• There is Weak linkages b/w academia and pvt industry
• Pvt R&D does not have long tradition
• Venture capital growing but still underdeveloped in India
• R&D in Indian universities is a very small part of innovation in India
• Qualified staff is still a limited resource.
• Small Indian vendors have a limited international exposure
• Full time equivalent R&D professional strength of only 150 professionals per million, compared to that of other countries

 

[mayankkrishna]

Deterrents.. contd..

• Indian research is mostly skewed towards basic research and lacks in application oriented R&D. The vast majority of organizations would rather go for quick acquisition of technology rather than invest in internal R&D.
• Academic institutions and many public research centers focus on advancing the science, focusing on patenting and publishing, very little systematic attention is being spent in applied R&D.
• Despite the growing talent pool, Indian R&D remains globally non-competitive.

 

[Bhadra]

First of all make Research Organisations reservation free

 

[Bhadra]

The government has India has put significant expenditure on research in defence industry :

 

[mayankkrishna]

The government has India has put significant expenditure on research in defence industry :

Its approx. 156 Million$. Its meagre if compared with even TATA Motors

According to EU Industrial R&D Investment Ranking: http://iri.jrc.ec.europa.eu/scoreboard14.html, TATA Motors which is the highest R&D spending corporate from India spent over 1.1 Billion on R&D in 2014 alone.

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