2 months ago
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India contiguous presents a striking paradox successful research, development, and innovation. Despite unprecedented authorities ambition, reflected successful large backing commitments, regulatory reforms, and improving planetary innovation rankings, the state inactive continues to underperform connected the fundamentals that thrust innovation strength. Headlines suggest momentum, yet outcomes archer a much sobering story: debased probe and improvement (R&D) intensity, constricted planetary technological influence, anemic research-to-market translation, and persistently inadequate private-sector participation. While caller argumentation initiatives are indispensable and welcome, India’s innovation situation is nary longer 1 of intent but of execution. An introspection of R&D expenditure, patent standard and quality, quality superior gaps, and the anemic span betwixt probe and entrepreneurship leads to an inevitable conclusion: meaningful translation volition necessitate acold deeper systemic change, peculiarly from the industry.
A twelvemonth that holds promise
Following the Government of India’s announcement of the ₹1,00,000 crore (approximately $12 billion) Research, Development, and Innovation (RDI) Fund past year, 2026 has begun with overmuch promise. In her ninth consecutive Union Budget speech, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman reaffirmed the government’s committedness to R&D done a ₹20,000 crore corpus for deep-tech startups, extended taxation incentives, and investments successful integer infrastructure. A adjacent six-fold summation successful backing for the flagship programme, Atal Tinkering Labs — from ₹500 crore to ₹3,200 crore — besides highlights the absorption connected nurturing aboriginal innovators. The government’s intent is clear: a Viksit Bharat powered by Yuva Shakti. But whether this translates into innovation outcomes volition beryllium connected however decisively manufacture responds.
These measures travel intimately connected the removal of the three-year beingness request that had constricted the entree of deep-tech startups to schemes nether the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research’s Industrial R&D Promotion Programme. Late past year, the authorities besides lifted the broad prohibition connected patenting inventions related to atomic energy. The Sustainable Harnessing and Advancement of Nuclear Energy for Transforming India (SHANTI) Act, 2025 present allows patents for the “peaceful uses of atomic vigor and radiation”, which opens the doorway for greater private-sector participation. Yet, arsenic with different reforms, the existent trial volition beryllium whether manufacture invests capable to construe this openness into deployable technologies.
All these developments coincide with a important betterment successful India’s ranking successful the Global Innovation Index (GII). India present ranks 38th among 139 economies successful GII 2025, and patent filings person astir doubled from nether 59,000 successful 2020-21 to implicit 1,10,000 successful 2024-25. While home filings present relationship for astir 62% of the total, this displacement is some caller and policy-driven, underscoring that the underlying innovation basal — peculiarly industry-led R&D — remains shallow. Although these indicators constituent successful the close direction, determination stay systematic and structural issues that support India from existent translation successful research, development, and innovation.
The backstage sector’s shortcomings
R&D expenditure arsenic a stock of GDP — particularly private-sector spending — is simply a cardinal indicator of innovation readiness. India invests conscionable 0.65% of its GDP successful R&D, acold beneath precocious economies and galore peers (lowest among BRICS nations but for South Africa) including Singapore, Japan, and South Korea. In astir innovation-leading economies, manufacture drives the astir R&D spending. In India, however, the authorities inactive bears a disproportionate share, reflecting the backstage sector’s constricted appetite for long-term, high-risk innovation.
Similarly, India’s patent filing numbers are awesome successful isolation, but are a fraction of the implicit 1.8 cardinal patent applications filed successful China (1.6 cardinal home filings) and importantly little than the 600,000 filed successful the United States (2,70,000 home filings). This reflects the lack of sustained, high-risk R&D concern by India’s backstage sector.
One mode to measure innovation interaction is by planetary patent filings, since inventors question extortion overseas lone for commercially viable ideas. The fig of Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) applications amusement India’s planetary contribution: 4,547 successful 2024, up 22% from 2023. While maturation is strong, India remains acold down China (over 70,000), the U.S. (over 54,000), and Japan (over 48,000). Even Switzerland, which is simply a spot larger than Kerala, filed implicit 5,300 applications. These examples amusement that scale, and not conscionable maturation rate, drives planetary technological influence.
According to the GII 2025, India performs poorly connected cardinal human-capital indicators captious to innovation, ranking 95 successful employment successful knowledge-intensive sectors and 80 successful the fig of full-time equivalent researchers. The concern is much acute with respect to sex diversity, wherever India ranks 101 among 119 economies successful the employment of women with precocious degrees, a weakness that matters fixed the beardown correlation betwixt diverseness and innovation outcomes. While the authorities has acknowledged this spread and introduced initiatives specified arsenic Women’s Instinct for Developing and Ushering successful Scientific Heights and Innovations (WIDUSHI) and Women successful Science and Engineering (WISE)-KIRAN to amended women’s information successful subject and engineering, their interaction remains to beryllium seen. For now, the information underscore that India’s innovation situation is arsenic overmuch astir endowment inclusion and retention arsenic it is astir backing oregon argumentation intent.
A faultline
An property of India’s improvement trajectory that is often quoted is the missing “large-scale, labour-intensive industrialisation” erstwhile compared to its eastbound Asian peers starring to implicit reliance connected agriculture and services. Even India’s alleged caller property unicorns are built connected abundance of labour (instant transportation platforms, for example) alternatively than deep, defensible, genuine R&D-led technological innovation. It is, therefore, tenable to reason that the lack of globally important technologies of Indian root stems not simply from humanities argumentation choices but besides from a sustained reluctance wrong the backstage assemblage to put successful deep, long-gestation R&D.
Innovation reaches its afloat interaction lone erstwhile probe is anchored to enterprise, i.e., erstwhile ideas determination successfully from laboratory to market. In India, this past measurement — the lack of industry-led commercialisation mechanisms affecting innovation remains the weakest successful the Research, Development, and Innovation (RDI) chain. While universities and nationalist probe institutions make increasing technological output, mechanisms for exertion transfer, task creation, and risk-capital alignment stay underdeveloped. High-technology entrepreneurship is inherently uncertain, capital-intensive, and requires long-gestation, demanding diligent funding, beardown intelligence spot protection, and an ecosystem that tolerates failure. Countries that pb successful innovation person built bridges betwixt academia, industry, and finance. India’s accidental lies not conscionable successful expanding startup numbers but besides successful nurturing R&D-driven enterprises susceptible of creating globally competitory technologies.
India’s backstage assemblage indispensable present instrumentality up the baton and emergence to the situation of driving India’s RDI story. There are disposable greenish shoots successful the commercialized abstraction assemblage with respective palmy start-ups demonstrating beardown promise. Deep tech is different emerging country wherever the RDI money acceptable up by the authorities tin beryllium a crippled changer, provided manufacture positively embraces the accidental and commits semipermanent capital. When the 6G modular is globally launched successful the coming years, it volition beryllium telling however galore Indian root patents diagnostic among the modular indispensable patents (SEP) list. The authorities has paved the way. But the question present is whether India’s backstage assemblage R&D volition contention ahead.
Gaurav Jain is the laminitis of Hastin Research and an IPR adept helping enterprises, startups, and universities alteration ideas into invaluable IP. Mukundan Chakrapani holds a PhD successful subject and a instrumentality degree, with cross-domain experience, and has precocious rejoined academia. The views expressed are personal
