BRIDGING THE GAP

With government funds drying up, public educational institutions are reaching out to the private sector to sponsor research. Companies are only too happy as they can outsource their R&D to competent academics

- Nandini Keshari

Earlier this year Nokia, a Finnish multinational, announced its collaboration with the Indian Institute of Sciences (IISc), Bengaluru for research in 6G technologies. The joint research will be conducted at the company’s newly inaugurated 6G lab in Bengaluru.

Cut to Wipro, an information technology (IT) giant, which is partnering with IISc to offer its employees a course in artificial intelligence (AI).

While academia-industry partnerships have been prevalent in the West for a while, in India it had not really gelled. But things are slowly changing, and the reasons are twofold.

First, the realisation among university dons that research has to keep in mind market needs. And second, the squeeze in funding from the central government.

Funding Autumn

In the Union Budget for 2024–25, the allocation for the University Grants Commission (UGC) has been slashed by over 60%, dropping to Rs 2,500 crore from Rs 6,409 crore in the revised budget estimate of the previous year. The budget for Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) also witnessed a slight dip from 2023–24 revised estimates of Rs 10,384.21 crore to Rs 10,324.50 crore in the budget. The allocation for Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) has been slashed for the second consecutive year.

Despite the government focus on research and development (R&D), the expenditure as a share of gross domestic product (GDP) has declined in the past few years. Although absolute spending has increased from Rs 60,197 crore in 2010–11 to Rs 1,27,381 crore in 2020–21, India currently spends just about 0.65% on R&D as a share of GDP as against the global average of about 1.8%.

The budget for the department of higher education has not seen any significant change over the years. In 2012–13, the budget was set at 0.27% of the GDP, and a decade later, in 2023–24, it dipped to 0.26%.