Quantum Shift, Pg6

Key Highlights:

• Private industry accounted for 51.8% of India's national research spending in 2023-24, marking the first time it surpassed government contributions.
• This represents a significant increase from a little over a third of national R&D spending through the 2010s.
• Private R&D expenditure nearly doubled from ₹46,388 crore to ₹82,975 crore between 2020-21 and 2021-22.
• Transport firms emerged as the largest corporate investors in R&D, followed by pharmaceuticals, biotechnology, and information technology.
• India's total R&D spending increased from ₹1.27 lakh crore to ₹1.95 lakh crore in a single year.
• The Anusandhan National Research Foundation was established with a ₹50,000-crore corpus, largely to be raised from private sources.

Detailed Insights:

• The surge in private R&D spending is partly attributed to a post-pandemic realization of research's importance for competitiveness.
• Improved measurement, including mandatory sustainability disclosures for large listed firms and tighter RBI norms, also contributed to the reported increase.
• Spending that was previously uncaptured, such as in foreign subsidiaries and captive centers of multinationals, is now being fully recorded.
• New capital is flowing into emerging technology areas like artificial intelligence, chip design, and semiconductor fabrication.
• India's R&D expenditure stands at 0.84% of GDP, which is considerably lower than leading research nations like China (2.58%) and the U.S. (3.45%).
• The country has 354 researchers per million people, significantly fewer than South Korea and Israel, which field several thousand.
• A concern highlighted is that the private sector spent more on advertising than on research in 2023-24.
• The long-term value of this shift depends on deepening India's pool of specialized workers and enhancing its capacity for sophisticated manufacturing.

Key Concepts Involved:

• Anusandhan National Research Foundation (ANRF): A body established to promote research and development in India, primarily through private sector funding.
• Gross Domestic Product (GDP): The total monetary value of all finished goods and services produced within a country's borders in a specific time period.
• Research and Development (R&D): Activities undertaken by companies or governments to innovate, introduce new products, or improve existing ones.
• Sustainability Disclosures: Mandatory reporting by companies on their environmental, social, and governance (ESG) performance and impacts.