In India, today, academic research and top-tier R&D institutions are flush with grants, infrastructure, and talent. The IITs, ICAR, national research labs and central universities produce a steady stream of papers, patents, and PhDs. On paper, this looks like a success story in motion.
Yet a stark paradox stands out. For all this intellectual energy, very little of it seems to touch people’s lives. Our journals are overflowing, but our markets are not. We still depend heavily on foreign technology. Technologies that could solve real problems — from precision farming to affordable diagnostics — often remain trapped and untapped in academic silos of our institutions. If India wants science and technology to power its economy and not merely its reputation, it must give utmost importance to what happens after the discovery.
The real challenge is translation — turning research into usable solutions that industries can adopt and citizens can benefit from. It is no longer enough to publish; we must produce.
The funding picture: Broad headlines, narrow impact
India spends just about 0.64 per cent of its GDP on research and development, according to government data for 2020–21. The figure has barely moved in years. Of that, nearly two-thirds comes from public funds. The private sector — which drives most of the applied research in advanced economies — accounts for barely a third.
More worrying than the number itself is where that money goes. A bulk of India’s R&D funding flows to elite institutions — the IITs, IISc, CSIR, DRDO, ICAR and a handful of central universities. These institutions are the crown jewels of Indian science, but the concentration of funds also means that state universities and smaller research centres remain under-equipped to contribute meaningfully. The country’s innovation capacity, as a result, remains lopsided and centralised.
The valley of death
The deeper malaise lies beyond the balance sheets. India doesn’t just have a funding gap; it has a translation gap.
Researchers often work on projects designed for publication rather than production. Success is measured in citations, not in prototypes or patents brought to market. The incentive system in academia rewards papers, not partnerships. And so, ideas that could have become products often end their lives as PDFs on institutional servers.
A NITI Aayog policy note once warned that India’s R&D ecosystem is “detached from the commercial arms of the economy.” The evidence is everywhere. Technology transfer offices — the bodies meant to link scientists with businesses — exist mostly in name.
Even when industry does show interest, the clock runs differently on both sides. Academic projects move in semesters and review cycles, while businesses chase quarterly targets. By the time research results are ready, the market may have moved on. Add to that the cost of testing, approvals, and scaling up, and many good ideas simply lose momentum.
How others got it right
India’s struggles aren’t unique. Many countries have faced this gap before — and fixed it.
In Germany, the Fraunhofer Institutes bridge academia and industry with remarkable success. These are mission-driven research centres that focus on applied science, conducting contract research for businesses. Seventy per cent of their income comes from such partnerships. Their scientists don’t just publish papers; they build prototypes, file patents, and co-develop products that reach the market.
The United States took a transformational leap in 1980 with the Bayh–Dole Act, which allowed universities to own the intellectual property arising from federally funded research. The result was transformative. American universities suddenly had an incentive to commercialise. Offices of technology transfer mushroomed across campuses, and university-linked startups became a national phenomenon.
The aligned incentives made these models successful. Researchers knew that innovation could bring recognition and revenue, not just citations. Industry trusted academia to deliver solutions, not just theories. And, the government created the legal and financial architecture to make that relationship flourish.
India’s way forward: Three-fold path
For India to bridge its translation gap, it must build a robust system which aims to bring researchers, industry, and startups under one big umbrella.
First, academia must reorient itself toward relevance. Not every scientist needs to become an entrepreneur, but research should at least ask: who would use this? Departments could set aside part of their budget for “challenge grants” that focus on industry-defined problems. Translational success — technologies licensed, products piloted — should count as much as journal publications in career evaluations.
Second, the industry must come closer to campuses. Too often, businesses complain that academic research is “out of touch,” while universities claim that industry doesn’t fund basic research. Both are right — and both are wrong. Large companies, MSMEs, and sectoral associations should create structured “problem statements” for academic institutions, offering co-funding and data access. Regular industry-academia roundtables can keep priorities aligned.
Third, startups should act as the engines of translation. India’s startup scene is buzzing, but deep-tech founders still face an uphill climb — raising early funding is tough, and navigating regulations can be even tougher. Dedicated ‘Translational Accelerators’ — focused on taking prototypes to market, not just writing business plans — can help bridge this gap. These centres could provide seed grants, mentorship, testing facilities, and even shared legal support for IP and compliance.
The three parts reinforce each other: researchers must think beyond publication, industries must stay invested beyond sponsorship, and startups must carry the innovation across the last mile.
Government’s pivotal role
The government, inevitably, will have to play multiple roles — that of catalyst, funder, and connector.
Some success stories already exist. The Biotech Consortium India Limited (BCIL) has transferred more than 60 technologies from Indian research institutes to the market, ranging from vaccines to biofertilizers. But this remains confined largely to life sciences. What India now needs is a cross-sectoral translation ecosystem — a national network of technology transfer hubs that cover agriculture, energy, digital, and materials science alike.
These hubs should not just sit within ministries but function with professional autonomy, staffed by experts in IP, finance, and marketing. Performance metrics should track not just the number of patents filed but the number of patents licensed.
On the policy front, the newly enacted Anusandhan National Research Foundation (ANRF) offers a chance to correct course. Its mandate to promote collaborative, mission-oriented research must be paired with a clear push for commercialisation and impact evaluation. Similarly, a more effective “patent box” policy — which offers tax incentives to companies commercialising Indian IP — could nudge the private sector to participate more actively.
A network of technology translational institutes (TTIs), on the lines of Fraunhofer, could be India’s next big bet. These centres, can run on SPVs or be jointly funded by the government and private players. Their main focus should be on national priorities like climate resilience, affordable healthcare, and digital public goods — taking promising technologies to prototype and pilot stages before licensing them to industry or spinning them into startups.
Why it matters now
Countries across the globe are moving at a humongous pace toward a deep-tech future — in AI, quantum computing, biotech, green energy, and advanced materials. The countries that will lead are those that can turn research into reality quickly. Without strong systems to translate ideas into products, India risks becoming a “publication factory” — rich in theory, poor in outcomes.
But this isn’t only about global competition. Translating research inherently also means inclusion — it brings science to the fields, clinics, and workshops and to the grassroot levels, that need it most. Precision agriculture to low-cost diagnostic kits, smart irrigation systems to next-gen mobility— these are not luxuries, they are lifelines. When research leaves the labs, it creates livelihoods and opportunities.
Change won’t happen overnight. Indian academia still values theory more than practice, and most labs simply don’t have the funds or setup to take ideas beyond the prototype stage. It will take more than good intentions — real funding, clear ownership rules, and a mindset that values teamwork over working in silos. And this can’t stop at the IITs — regional universities and smaller labs must be part of the story too. State universities and regional institutes must also be part of the journey if innovation is to be truly national.
From ‘Publish or Perish’ to ‘Translate and Transform’
India doesn’t lack ideas — it lacks pathways. The bridge between discovery and deployment is what will decide whether our science stays on paper or changes lives. Every patent, every PhD, every grant should aim for real-world impact. Otherwise, we risk turning brilliance into isolation — clever, but disconnected from the country it was meant to serve.
The time has come to move from publish or perish to translate and transform. Only then will Indian science truly serve its people — not just its pride.
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