{"id":278178,"date":"2025-04-09T19:56:17","date_gmt":"2025-04-09T19:56:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2025\/04\/09\/govt-flags-science-rd-challenges-plans-ease-of-doing-research-overhaul\/"},"modified":"2025-04-09T19:56:17","modified_gmt":"2025-04-09T19:56:17","slug":"govt-flags-science-rd-challenges-plans-ease-of-doing-research-overhaul","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2025\/04\/09\/govt-flags-science-rd-challenges-plans-ease-of-doing-research-overhaul\/","title":{"rendered":"Govt flags science R&D challenges, plans ‘Ease of Doing Research’ overhaul"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The Central government has written to over 350 heads of India’s leading scientific institutes and laboratories, asking them to identify key bottlenecks and challenges in conducting and scaling Research<\/a> & Development (R&D), ET has learnt.<\/p>\n

The move is part of a broader push to evaluate the ‘Ease of Doing R&D’ in India, at a time when global technology advances are accelerating, but Indian R&D still lags in pace and impact.<\/p>\n

Following meetings led by the Prime Minister’s Office and the Principal Scientific Advisor<\/a>, NITI Aayog has been tasked with leading a nationwide reset of the R&D ecosystem.<\/p>\n

As part of the exercise, NITI Aayog has asked for detailed inputs- by April 30- on regulatory, administrative, and operational hurdles from centrally funded labs, universities, and scientific bodies. The Aayog is also consulting scientific academies to shape a more supportive research environment.<\/p>\n

Preliminary inputs point to a systemic issue: rigid rules on fund flow and utilisation are a bigger drag on research than the lack of funding itself. These include challenges tied to the General Financial Rules<\/a>, reappropriation hurdles, and weak incentive structures-especially acute in state institutions but also present in top-tier centres.<\/p>\n

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In addition, researchers report that fragmented coordination among ministries, overlapping compliance mandates, and outdated approval systems are further slowing down projects. A lack of autonomy at institutional levels and limited risk appetite in decision-making are also seen as barriers to cutting-edge research.Insiders say this red tape explains why high-quality research in India remains concentrated in elite institutions like IITs, IISc, and CSIR labs-and why so little of it transitions into commercial products or scalable innovations.The urgency stems not only from India’s own innovation ambitions but also from international developments. Countries like the US, China, and South Korea have significantly ramped up investments in frontier science<\/a> and emerging technologies, often combining academic freedom with agile funding mechanisms and strong university-industry linkages. India risks falling behind if structural issues are not addressed.<\/p>\n

To counter this, the Centre has entrusted NITI Aayog with two key tasks:<\/p>\n

\u2219 A nationwide review of the R&D ecosystem, to be completed by year-end.<\/p>\n

\u2219 A new framework to assess and improve the ‘Ease of Doing Research<\/a>‘ across institutions.<\/p>\n

The three-part reform will focus on:<\/p>\n

Funding: Gaps in support structures, tech readiness levels, and fund accessibility.<\/p>\n

Regulatory framework: Streamlining grant rules, project evaluations, and researcher career tracks.<\/p>\n

Institutional benchmarking: Setting model guidelines and boosting support for R&D scale-up and monetization.<\/p>\n

The aim is to position Indian science and innovation as globally competitive-not just in publication numbers, but in translating research into solutions that power economic growth, national security, and technological leadership.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n


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The Central government has written to over 350 heads of India’s leading scientific institutes and laboratories, asking them to identify key bottlenecks and challenges in conducting and scaling Research & Development (R&D), ET has learnt. The move is part of a broader push to evaluate the ‘Ease of Doing R&D’ in India, at a time […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":278179,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/img.etimg.com\/photo\/118783427.cms","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[602],"tags":[2696,10844,215029,215028,7486,83895,3056,14667,1925,105817,31381,5623,34523,252],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278178"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=278178"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278178\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":278180,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278178\/revisions\/278180"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/278179"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=278178"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=278178"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=278178"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}