M3L4: Steps required to promote R&D in India

Investments in human capital:

Close attention given to encouraging a talent pipeline in science, technology, and engineering skills, along with basic base of product design, management, sales, finance, and entrepreneurship to ensure commercial success.

Collaborating science with commercialization and entrepreneurial efforts:

Basic research is an essential starting point. However, when seeking maximum economic impact, close collaborations with entrepreneurs are in place to advance their commercialization.

Make capital available for all stages of R&D:

All levels of funding are encouraged, from small-scale grants for early stage proof-of-concept research to large-scale commercially focused equity investment.

Establish a government body that is supportive and responsive:

Policies, regulations, incentives, and taxes are in place to support the formation and growth of R&D ecosystems. Industry is offered opportunities to give input on the changing needs of ecosystems.

Setting Industry Benchmarks:

·         The private sector can contribute immensely by investing in research, analysis and setting quality standards for training courses through National Occupation Standards (NOS) with performance criteria, or linking productivity with technological interventions. To make this happen, the government should invest in Mega infra projects in science like CERN or economic sectors with strong and efficient linkages with SMEs and MSMEs.

·         By creating a demand for high standards, this will act as an incentive for them to do R&D so as to improve their quality of manufacturing. Successes of ISRO that now procures >80% of its products by creating efficient linkages with MSMEs and SMEs is a case in this point.

Collaboration with Training Providers:

Having a strategic collaboration with training providers would be ideal as not every private companies are equipped to do in-house design, and development and delivery of training to suit their productivity requirements.at different stages. This would help in creating a talent pipeline for their needs would improve the success rate of connecting the right skills with the right people and the right job roles.

Co-investing in Training Infrastructure:

Actual delivery of training would require planning for training–sites on their work premise. Private companies can fund/subsidize specific training labs/equipment which might otherwise be too expensive for training partners to invest in.

Provide Industry Expertise:

The private sector can encourage and support willing employees to take up roles as subject experts, practical guides and mentors through various train-the-trainers programs or guest lectures which will go a long way in ensuring better training outcomes.

Develop Incubators on PPP model

1.    The government role is essentially to develop the technical infrastructure, policy framework and initial finance and to help catalyze the venture creation process, but experience shows that the establishment of public private partnership (PPP) based incubators contributes to maximizing the positive effects of the incubation experience.

2.    Currently, there are several incubators such as the Center for Innovation, Incubation, and Entrepreneurship (CIIE) at the Indian Institute of Management in Ahmedabad; Society for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (SINE) at the (Indian Institute of Technology in Bombay; Cell for Tech Innovation, and Entrepreneurial Training Society (TIETS) at IIT Kharagpur which are supported the government.

3.    Government and private sector companies should enhance their collaboration to establish incubators on PPP model. This would ensure that the R&D and innovation activities at the incubation centres are in line with the industry demand and market needs.

Private Sector Should Focus on India Centric R&D:

Multi-nationals have a large resource of talent pool. The Government should provide incentives for India centric R&D and innovation activities to multi-national companies. The Government of India should relax its policies allowing MNCs to bid on India centric projects supported by government funding.

Develop Sector Skill Council for R&D:

The National Skills Development Corporation (NSDC) has currently set up various Sector Skill Councils in place. A special R&D sector skill council should be initiated with private partnership that will provide a special focus on R&D skills.

Promote R&D Investments as CSR

1.    The government’s recent mandate on company’s contribution to CSR activities is already defining new paradigms and forcing companies to re-strategize their priority areas in terms of CSR spend. 

2.    There is an opportunity to recommend to the government to extend the CSR mandate to include supporting research in niche, high-impact sectors. This will encourage the private sector to spend the CSR money to bring affordable, accessible solutions to the bottom of the population.

Establishing convergence between Central and State policies:

1.    The responsibility of increase in GDP spent to 2% will also lay with various states in the country.

2.    Many states in India are already working on policies that will scale up the sector significantly. They offer direct support via grants or procurement or fiscal incentives like CSR, tax returns and rebates.

3.    A systematic approach of collaboration is needed between governments at the federal level, state governments and the private sector in bringing out policies favorable for developing R&D centers by giving ready access to lands to channelize investment in this sector.