-Sumit Bhaduri
According to a popular song of the 1960s, there is a season for everything to turn and change. One would like to believe that the same applies to Indian science and its management. After all, the recently-concluded centenary session of the Indian Science Cong-ress enjoyed an unprecedented level of visibility and political patronage with the president as its chief guest and the PM as its general president.
The overall theme was "shaping the future of India". The speeches of the political luminaries matched this noble if nebulous sentiment. The government initiatives in setting up 50 new academic and research institutes and the importance of a policy environment for greater private sector participation in research and innovation were mentioned. The president noted that a Nobel prize in Indian science was long overdue. Finally, the policy document unveiled at the congress, titled `Science, Technology and Innovation Policy`, indicated the government`s awareness of the trendy i-word.
With respect to incremental, science-based innovations, barring the
pharmaceutical sector the performance of the Indian industry over the
last two decades has been disappointing. The number of granted patents
in a given country is a gross measure of industry-driven innovative
activity. Last year`s figures show that the number of granted patents in
India is about 2 to 3% of that in the US, China and Japan, and way
behind South Korea, Canada, Russia etc. Industry-academia linkages, for
all practical purposes, don`t exist in India.
The challenges of turning Indian science into part of an innovation process are many. A beginning could perhaps be made by rewarding collaborative good science. Talk of India`s long overdue Nobel prize for science may not lead to good collaborative science but more likely produce unethical scientific practices.
A mechanism must be found by which Indian industry is forced and tempted to think long-term. Greater private sector participation in promoting incremental innovation will only happen when their survival becomes dependent on technical competitiveness. The dialectics of "licence raj" and "crony capitalism" cannot produce incremental innovations. However, any public-private partnership, the PM`s solution to bring in greater private sector participation, must subject itself to careful audit by civil society.
The writer is a professor at IIT, Bombay.
According to a popular song of the 1960s, there is a season for everything to turn and change. One would like to believe that the same applies to Indian science and its management. After all, the recently-concluded centenary session of the Indian Science Cong-ress enjoyed an unprecedented level of visibility and political patronage with the president as its chief guest and the PM as its general president.
The overall theme was "shaping the future of India". The speeches of the political luminaries matched this noble if nebulous sentiment. The government initiatives in setting up 50 new academic and research institutes and the importance of a policy environment for greater private sector participation in research and innovation were mentioned. The president noted that a Nobel prize in Indian science was long overdue. Finally, the policy document unveiled at the congress, titled `Science, Technology and Innovation Policy`, indicated the government`s awareness of the trendy i-word.
How science shapes the future of a country is not easy to answer.
Progress in science does not necessarily result in ideas which
significantly expand frontiers of knowledge. Nor does it mean an
automatic step forward in the fight against superstition, bigotry and
poverty. To attain these objectives, for which scientists, science
managers, bureaucrats and politicians get paid by the taxpayers, the
doing and teaching of science need to be innovation-focussed.
Innovation essentially means good, new ideas that lead to socio-economic benefits for society as a whole. Science-based innovations work mainly through civilian technologies where new products and new processes deliver economic benefits. They also work through the spread of scientific temper in the classrooms. What is often not appreciated is that good science-based ideas originate in non-market amateur labs or in academic environments rather than in private industry. They provide platforms which could support commercial ventures to be initiated by entrepreneurs, or visionary industry captains, or the state.
This is contrary to conventional wisdom which fails to differentiate between big or breakthrough innovations and incremental innovations. Science-based big innovations as opposed to the incremental ones do not result from market economics and individual efforts. Internet and the Web, two of the greatest innovations of our time, are not owned by anyone. Great innovations such as batteries, birth control pills, penicillin, DNA forensics, computers, the MRI scan to name just a few, all originated and flowered in non-market amateur labs or in academic environments. In these environments ideas are freely exchanged between creative individuals. Business development deals and patent lawyers come later.
In contrast, incremental innovations are largely guided by market forces. Industrial houses undertake research and development projects depending on customer feedback, or to cut down on manufacturing cost. They also undertake programmes to hedge against technical competition and obsolescence. Frantic patenting activity, a hallmark of the heydays of globalisation, mainly deals with incremental innovations of this type. The many recent court cases between Samsung, Google etc, as also between Indian pharmaceutical companies and multinationals, highlight the society-specific, complex definitions of incremental innovation.
Any policy that aims to couple science with innovation must take into account the specific problems of Indian science. Academic environments where ideas are free to flow and can be tested require not just well-equipped modern laboratories, but also small groups of motivated scientists willing to work together.
Individual scientists are too concerned about sharing credits, research funding and recognition. Collaboration between talented young scientists virtually does not exist. Individual recognition, awards etc have come to mean automatic access to the domain of science management, wherein science signifies administrative power and political patronage. Many competent Indian scientists aspire to be ineffectual administrators, rather than do the kind of science that makes a difference. It is no wonder that not a single Indian academic institute figures among the global top 200. Positioning India among the top five global scientific powers by 2020, has nothing to do with the realities of Indian science.
Innovation essentially means good, new ideas that lead to socio-economic benefits for society as a whole. Science-based innovations work mainly through civilian technologies where new products and new processes deliver economic benefits. They also work through the spread of scientific temper in the classrooms. What is often not appreciated is that good science-based ideas originate in non-market amateur labs or in academic environments rather than in private industry. They provide platforms which could support commercial ventures to be initiated by entrepreneurs, or visionary industry captains, or the state.
This is contrary to conventional wisdom which fails to differentiate between big or breakthrough innovations and incremental innovations. Science-based big innovations as opposed to the incremental ones do not result from market economics and individual efforts. Internet and the Web, two of the greatest innovations of our time, are not owned by anyone. Great innovations such as batteries, birth control pills, penicillin, DNA forensics, computers, the MRI scan to name just a few, all originated and flowered in non-market amateur labs or in academic environments. In these environments ideas are freely exchanged between creative individuals. Business development deals and patent lawyers come later.
In contrast, incremental innovations are largely guided by market forces. Industrial houses undertake research and development projects depending on customer feedback, or to cut down on manufacturing cost. They also undertake programmes to hedge against technical competition and obsolescence. Frantic patenting activity, a hallmark of the heydays of globalisation, mainly deals with incremental innovations of this type. The many recent court cases between Samsung, Google etc, as also between Indian pharmaceutical companies and multinationals, highlight the society-specific, complex definitions of incremental innovation.
Any policy that aims to couple science with innovation must take into account the specific problems of Indian science. Academic environments where ideas are free to flow and can be tested require not just well-equipped modern laboratories, but also small groups of motivated scientists willing to work together.
Individual scientists are too concerned about sharing credits, research funding and recognition. Collaboration between talented young scientists virtually does not exist. Individual recognition, awards etc have come to mean automatic access to the domain of science management, wherein science signifies administrative power and political patronage. Many competent Indian scientists aspire to be ineffectual administrators, rather than do the kind of science that makes a difference. It is no wonder that not a single Indian academic institute figures among the global top 200. Positioning India among the top five global scientific powers by 2020, has nothing to do with the realities of Indian science.
The challenges of turning Indian science into part of an innovation process are many. A beginning could perhaps be made by rewarding collaborative good science. Talk of India`s long overdue Nobel prize for science may not lead to good collaborative science but more likely produce unethical scientific practices.
A mechanism must be found by which Indian industry is forced and tempted to think long-term. Greater private sector participation in promoting incremental innovation will only happen when their survival becomes dependent on technical competitiveness. The dialectics of "licence raj" and "crony capitalism" cannot produce incremental innovations. However, any public-private partnership, the PM`s solution to bring in greater private sector participation, must subject itself to careful audit by civil society.
The writer is a professor at IIT, Bombay.
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