COMMENT

ILLUSTRATION BY PHIL DISLEY

Free Indian science
As elections begin in India, Mathai Joseph and Andrew Robinson call for an end to the
stultifying bureaucracy that has held back the nation’s science for decades.

I
ndia’s general elections this month and Indian science is as much structural as it is industry. Three other Indian-born scientists
next could be among the most important financial. Before the machinery of govern- have won a Nobel prize — biochemist
since it gained independence in 1947. ment took over and mismanaged research Har Gobind Khorana (in 1968), astrophysi-
After ten years of a largely indecisive and in the mid-twentieth century, several foun- cist Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar (in
an often scandal-ridden coalition govern- dational scientific discoveries were made 1983) and molecular biologist Venkatraman
ment, there are strident demands for better in India. Between about 1900 and 1930, Ramakrishnan (in 2009) — but for work done
governance, economic reform, the promo- Jagadish Chandra Bose made innovations entirely outside India. No mathematician
tion of manufacturing and improvements in in wireless signalling (borrowed by Italian from India has won the Fields Medal. And
agriculture, health care and environmental electrical engineer Guglielmo Marconi); Indian institutes and universities do not fea-
management. Meghnad Saha developed an ionization for- ture in the world’s top 200 higher-education
Sadly, science and its administration, once mula for hot gases that has a central role in institutions (see go.nature.com/bc69uq).
seen as central to Indian development, are stellar astrophysics; Satyendra Nath Bose’s The basic problem is that Indian science
not currently on the agenda, despite some theoretical work in quantum statistics led to has for too long been hamstrung by a
trenchant critiques from scientists and Bose–Einstein statistics; Chandrasekhara bureaucratic mentality that values admin-
science policy-makers1,2. Repeated govern- Venkata Raman did Nobel-prizewinning istrative power over scientific achievement.
ment promises to increase the expenditure work on light scattering; and in math- And, to preserve local control, research is
on research and development (R&D) to 2% ematics, Srinivasa Ramanujan was equally still done mostly by small teams working in
of India’s gross domestic product have not pioneering. isolation rather than through collaboration
been kept. R&D spend remains at about But since 1947, there has not been a single — a key generator of impact4.
0.9% of GDP — compared with 1.12% in Nobel-prizewinning scientific or techno- More than two decades ago, the threat of
Russia3 (down from 1.25% in 2009), 1.25% logical discovery, despite India’s successes in imminent national bankruptcy forced India’s
in Brazil and 1.84% in China2 (see ‘Brick space, radio astronomy, biology and pharma- government to liberate its economy from the
benchmarking’). ceuticals and the worldwide reputation of its notorious ‘licence–permit raj’, which had
That said, the stagnation afflicting US$100-billion information technology (IT) strait-jacketed commerce and industry since

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 COMMENT

1947. What will it take in 2014 to reinvigorate

SOURCE: THOMSON REUTERS

India’s decrepit scientific empires, trapped for BRICK BENCHMARKING

decades in a similarly rigid bureaucracy? Of the emerging economic powers, India spends the least on research and development.
On citations, it tails China, South Korea and until recently, Brazil.

DEEP-ROOTED PROBLEM 1 GROSS EXPENDITURE ON RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT (GERD)

The problem has a long history. The Council 4

GERD as % of gross domestic product

of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) South Korea China Brazil Russia India
was formed in 1942, before independ-
ence, to establish five national laboratories 3
aimed at converting research discoveries
into industrial applications. It was soon 2
widely derided. Raman, referring to the first
director-general of the CSIR, chemist Shanti
Swarup Bhatnagar, said: “Bhatnagar built 1
the National Laboratories to bury scientific
instruments”5. The situation today is no bet-
0
ter. A former CSIR director-general, chemi- 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010
cal engineer Raghunath Anant Mashelkar,
remarked in 2013: “India can’t remain a 2 IMPACT
nation of imitators.” 1.00
In 1954, India’s Department of Atomic World average
Energy (DAE) was created using a different
Relative citation impact

model, later replicated for other scientific 0.75

departments, such as those for space, science

and technology, electronics, biotechnol- 0.50
ogy and ocean development. Its first head,
nuclear physicist Homi J. Bhabha, was made
a secretary to the government, on a par with 0.25
top administrators in home affairs, finance
and defence. This gave atomic energy official
0
credibility, but placed it in a bureaucracy that 1981 1986 1991 1996 2001 2006 2011
was not designed to foster innovation.
Gradually, the DAE’s independence was
ground down and its scientists and technolo- Development of Telematics for some years virtual abandonment of science. But none
gists slotted into administrative grades in before emigrating in the early 1990s, and the of India’s science academies (such as the
which they could progress no faster than their appointment in February of Indian-born Indian National Science Academy and the
non-scientific peers. Research achievement Satya Nadella as chief executive of Microsoft. Indian Academy of Sciences) has taken any
offered few rewards, other than a patriotic pat The problems at the national level are action — even on the widely reported cases
on the back. The other scientific departments mirrored in institutions. First, scientists are of plagiarism by their fellows7.
quickly went down the same route. Scientists promoted on the basis of years of service,
began to measure success by their adminis- rather than achievement, and once at the FOUR STEPS TOWARDS CHANGE
trative position and left research to juniors, top they stay until retirement age; long after, Indian science needs public funding, but not
who saw what they had to do to move up the in some cases. Even at the prestigious Tata government control. In many countries, the
hierarchy. If good science was done along the Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR) promotion of science is devolved to agencies
way, it was incidental. Today, although India in Mumbai, which is less rule-bound than outside the main government structures,
ranks tenth in the world for output of scien- many other institutions, research groups are such as the United Kingdom’s Engineering
tific papers, it ranks 166th for average cita- almost invariably headed by those who have and Physical Sciences Research Council, the
tions per paper (see go.nature.com/xl3ldg). been there the longest. European Research Council, the US National
Almost 20% of patents filed at the World Second, although research in the lead- Science Foundation and Singapore’s Agency
Intellectual Property Organization in 2010 ing institutions is well funded — with more for Science, Technology and Research.
were from China, with just 1.9% from India money available than requested in credible The first step towards reinvigorating
(below Russia’s 2.1% but above Brazil’s 1.1%)6. grant applications, a striking contrast to the Indian science must be to create an empow-
Nearly 60% of India’s science budget2 is situation in many nations — the funding is ered funding agency, staffed by working
now spent on the CSIR, scientific depart- subject to unsuitable restrictions applicable scientists, some of whom could be non-
ments and the Defence Research and to the entire government bureaucracy. These resident Indians. A possible model is the
Development Organisation (DRDO) — an include limited foreign travel and no travel European Research Council, which deals
enormous and impenetrable empire set up support for research students, ruling out with a complex of national governments no
in 1958. None of these national institutions regular participation in leading conferences less formidable than India’s 29 state govern-
has stimulated scientific excellence. Indian and research gatherings. ments, yet manages to focus on supporting
scientists do outstanding work, but not in Third, the movement of researchers from research excellence. The crucial requirement
India. The latest examples of this long-famil- one institution to another is discouraged, is obviously that an Indian scientific research
iar situation include the award of the 2014 because administrators prefer senior posi- council be permitted to set its own criteria
Marconi Prize in the United States to engi- tions to be filled by internal promotion for the evaluation of research proposals,
neer Arogyaswami Joseph Paulraj of Stan- rather than lateral hiring. independent of direct government control,
ford University in California, who worked One would expect respected bodies of and disburse government funds accordingly.
in the Indian navy and at the Centre for scientists to question the government’s A second step must be to ensure

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 COMMENT

planned rotation of institutional roles in India barely benefited from this boom
and responsibilities. This occurs in most until recently, when a few enterprising
university departments in the Western world IT companies such as Tata Consultancy
— typically, every four or five years for the Services, Microsoft and Infosys instituted
chair of a UK university department. Gov- well-planned funding to pay attractive sti-
erning bodies should limit the tenure of the pends to young computer scientists taking
heads of scientific institutions and groups up research careers.
to, say, five years, after which they would One lesson from India’s IT industry is
be expected to return to active research. that it is essential to draw the private sector
This change would work best by choosing into major research programmes. Industry
heads young enough to have future research at present contributes about 30% of India’s
careers. Bhabha was 35 years old when he total spend on R&D2, most of it devoted to
was appointed director of the TIFR in 1944; improving productivity and reducing cost
his example has not been repeated. and energy consumption, rather than prod-
Third, the formation of trans-institutional uct development. It is essentially shut out of
groups that can undertake coordinated work basic research because of government rules
in a few well-chosen areas should be encour- that prohibit, or severely inhibit, public–
aged at the funding stage. This contrasts private collaboration. Although the massive
with the existing ‘national missions’ of the public-sector defence industry relies mostly
government. The $160-million Nano Mis- on purchasing foreign-made weapons and
sion (launched in 2007) has funded more little on the laboratories of the DRDO, it is
than 150 individual projects, 11 centres still unwilling to partner with Indian com-
of excellence and 6 industry-linked pro- panies to grow competence and capability.
jects — but has required no collaboration Another lesson is that science could attract
between institutions. talented young people if it provided them
For building compe- “Indian with a more exciting work environment and
tence and achieving science a career path that rewards achievement. A sci-
results, it would have needs public entific career has the potential to be at least as
been much more funding, challenging and stimulating as one in IT, even
effective to encourage but not if not as financially rewarding.
collaborative efforts government The Indian pioneers of the early twentieth
across institutions in, control.” century, such as Raman, made their theo-
for instance, medical retical and experimental breakthroughs with
applications, solar and fuel cells, and water almost no government support; their research
purification. Such collaboration has been suffered from government apathy but not
achieved successfully, for example, in the bureaucratic interference. The strong urge
European Strategic Program on Research for discovery that drove them could return
in Information Technology, the projects of — if there were greater rewards for innova-
which span several countries and agencies. tion, fewer for administration and longevity. ■
Fourth, how to spend that 2% of GDP
when it finally materializes? Leading institu- Mathai Joseph is a computer scientist and
tions such as the Indian Institutes of Tech- independent consultant. He was senior
nology and many others are already well research scientist at the Tata Institute of
provided for, by any standards8. New research Fundamental Research, Mumbai, India,
money should be spent on regenerating the and professor at the University of Warwick,
scores of poorly provided university labo- UK. He was also head of research at Tata
ratories that lack the funds to procure and Consultancy Services from 1999 to 2007.
maintain modern scientific equipment; they Andrew Robinson is the author of India:
currently receive only around 10% of the A Short History and Genius: A Very Short
R&D budget but are expected to produce Introduction.
most of the country’s PhDs2. e-mail: [email protected]
1. Desiraju, G. Nature 484, 159–160 (2012).
LESSONS FROM COMPUTING 2. Krishna, V. V. ‘Paralysis in science policies’ The
Indian scientists working in conventional Hindu (7 February 2014); available at http://
disciplines will be loath to admit it, but there go.nature.com/rdqdfo.
3. World Bank World Development Indicators:
is now a model of technological success in Research and Development Expenditure (% of
India — in the growth of the IT industry. GDP); available at http://go.nature.com/x3ohil.
The creation and export of software to the 4. Adams, J. Nature 490, 335–336 (2012).
5. Parameswaran, U. C. V. Raman: A Biography 224
developed nations grew, even during the (Penguin, 2011).
licence–permit raj of the 1970s and 80s, 6. World Intellectual Property Organization
because software did not fall into any gov- 2012 WIPO IP Facts and Figures (WIPO, 2012);
available at: http://go.nature.com/qjwanp.
ernment category9. Its commercial success 7. Jayaraman, K. S. Nature http://dx.doi.
was driven primarily by young engineers in org/10.1038/nature.2012.10102 (2012).
their 20s working in a competitive environ- 8. Varma, G. B. S. N. P. Science http://dx.doi.
org/10.1126/science.caredit.a1400003 (2014).
ment unfettered by government regulations. 9. Joseph, M. Digital Republic: India’s Rise to IT
Ironically, academic computer science Power (Power, 2013).

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