Budget 2024-25: Operationalisation of ANRF may be too little, too late

On July 23, 2024, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, during her Union Budget speech for the fiscal year 2024-25, announced that the Centre will finally operationalise the Anusandhan National Research Foundation (ANRF), five years after its initial announcement.

The foundation, established under the ANRF Act, 2023, was designed to fund, coordinate and promote research. “We will operationalise the ANRF for basic research and prototype development,” the minister said in her budget speech.

ANRF was allocated Rs 2,000 crore this time; the same as last year. However, the revised budget for 2023-2024 brought down the allocation to Rs 258.6 crores. The foundation will receive Rs 50,000 crore over five years, 72 per cent of which would come from private sources.  

In July 2024, the principal scientific adviser to the Government of India announced members of two key committees, attracting criticism. These include the 15-member Governing Board, which aims to provide high-level strategic direction as well as perform and monitor the implementation of the objectives of the Anusandhan National Research Foundation established with the ANRF Act, 2023 and the 16-member executive council, responsible for implementing the provisions of this Act.

Binay Panda, a professor at Jawaharlal Nehru University, talks to DTE about his views on ANRF.

Basic (curiosity-driven), translational research (application-oriented), or prototype developments are all part of research. ANRF does not say it excludes any particular research.

Most (95 per cent) of our students are trained at state universities and colleges with little or no research infrastructure. One of the primary objectives of ANRF is to correct this by boosting research infrastructure and capabilities in our universities (central and state) and colleges. The idea was to push our universities and colleges towards research and bridge the gap between teaching and research. 

It also envisaged facilitating ease of doing research — timely disbursal of funds and fellowships, reducing grant management bureaucracy and facilitating industry-academia collaboration. 

Let’s start with the first objective, a critical one. I have been voicing my opinion and writing about our university system for over a decade and how a slow decay has occurred there. We have systematically promoted delinking research from teaching in our universities. The idea that universities and colleges are for teaching and research is for specialised research institutions is faulty. 

If you think about post-independent India, the research capabilities of our universities were top-class. Delhi University, Jawaharlal Nehru University, Banaras Hindu University, Madurai Kamraj University, Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda, Allahabad University, Punjab University, Bombay University, Madras University, and many others would produce first-class research output — many of those are state universities. 

Over the last 75-odd years, systematically, the number of specialised research projects has skyrocketed from different ministries, primarily from various departments of the Union Ministry of Science and Technology: Department of Biotechnology, Department of Science and Technology, Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, and from the Union MInistry of Health and Family Welfare, etc. 

The growth of specialised research institutions is good news. However, their development, both the number and the rising quality there, happened with the simultaneous decay of our university system. Even top central universities, like the one I work at, have a highly dilapidated infrastructure. If you look at the quality of our students’ hostels, laboratory facilities, and classrooms, you will see that they all appear to be from medieval India. 

The conditions at state universities are far worse. We have not maintained or upgraded the infrastructure in our universities. Add to the decaying infrastructure a mix of excessive bureaucracy, arcane hiring practices and a lack of independence in functioning, we have a completely dysfunctional system for teaching and research in our universities. 

Keeping all that in mind, we breathed a sigh of relief when the idea for an independent body like the National Research Foundation (later renamed ANRF) was announced with its objectives. Finally, we would have a much-needed boost in infrastructure in our universities and colleges. However, the euphoria was short-lived. 

First, I was disappointed with the funding allocation. Out of Rs 50,000 crore of the total budget for five years, only Rs 10,000 crore of the additional budget will come from the government’s exchequer (the rest, Rs 36,000 crore, will have to be raised from non-governmental sources and 4,000 crore from the existing Science and Engineering Research Board’s budget as the body got subsumed with ANRF). 

In other words, the lion’s share or 72 per cent of the ANRF's budget, has to be raised from non-governmental sources. This was a welcome step as only a little over one-third of the country’s current research and development expenditure comes from the private sector, which needs to be raised. This is very different from the top economies of the world. If you see the United States or some parts of Europe, most of the research and development money comes from non-governmental resources like industry. 

Therefore, industry participation and getting money from non-governmental resources are welcome steps mentioned in ANRF. So, why was I disappointed? Well, the devil is in the details. Saying that we need contributions from the industry and philanthropists is one thing, but providing details is yet another. There needs to be clarity and information on how ANRF will raise 72 per cent of its financial resources from non-governmental sources. The proof of the pudding is in the eating. I see good intent; while it is necessary, it is insufficient. 

The most important and relevant question is — why would a private company invest in my lab unless there is something for it? Do industry scientists feel easier, better, and more seamless to work and collaborate with universities in the country? Although we have made many welcome changes in our system, we have miles to go in creating a conducive atmosphere for industry to invest in and work with academia. 

Let us go back to the model that works in the US, which is a very well-known one. The ANRF is rightfully inspired by the National Science Foundation of the US. In the US, cutting-edge and high-risk research happens in academia with public funds. Once the proof-of-concept is established, way before there is even a product or a process suitable for a product, the industry develops it further by investing in and collaborating with academic researchers and working internally in their labs. This happens as universities have excellent tech-transfer offices and well-written standard operating procedures for faculty to form companies, take leave, get paid for consulting work and use their lab for industry research. 

This is what you would call a win-win situation — academia gets to work on new problems, gets high-visibility publications, universities earn from transferring technology to industry and industry receives technology to develop products and commercialise them. Curiously, we have all these in place on paper. However, the reality is starkly different, bringing me to the second important stakeholder in the game — the institutions. 

Despite successive governments’ initiatives and guidelines, the inherent bureaucracy in our university system makes it very stifling for innovation, especially when there are industry partners to collaborate. 

Let me elaborate. Let’s consider a scenario where I want to work with an industry partner who would like to sponsor a part of my research and, in return, would like to get preferential rights on the future intellectual property originating from the work. The amount of paperwork, the number of questions asked and the hands with which the proposal gets circulated at the university level are mindboggling. After months of waiting and getting restless, the industry partner rescinded the offer to work with me while the file (increasingly e-file) was moving from one desk to another before returning to the same desk I originally sent it to. 

Time is money for the industry, and no one wants to lose time in a fast-paced global marketplace. More importantly, it sends the industry partner a red signal on what may lie ahead when working with the university system. This happens in our universities mainly for two reasons. First, there needs to be more knowledge and experience among people in university administration on STEM-based innovation and commercialisation, and second, we have very few success stories that they can rely on, which will push them to encourage industry to work with their faculty. This is easier said than done, as some of our institutions are 100 years old and have not just inherited but perfected the British-style bureaucracy.

Now, in the end, let’s talk about the third factor behind any success in academia-industry collaboration: the scientists who work in academia. Most of our scientists are not trained in applied or translational research. Therefore, a top-down diktat to produce innovation and collaborative research with industry is futile. While application-oriented and translational research is critical for the country, it should not happen at the cost of fundamental or basic sciences. Applied or translational science is based on the results of basic science done years and sometimes decades ago. 

Similarly, natural sciences should not happen at the cost of social sciences, humanities, and other non-natural sciences, while the former disciplines play a vital role in our society. Due to all these, the system pushes those trained in basic science with little interest in doing applied work to work with industry partners, making the lives of those keen on translational science and partnering with industry over-cumbersome and bureaucratic — a loss-loss scenario. 

Now, getting back to ANRF, the last straw that broke the camel’s back was when they recently announced the 15-member governing board and the 16-member executive council. My first reaction — how bizarre! Not a single person from the central or state universities and colleges, the institutions the body envisages reforming. The bodies also have only one woman — women form a sizable portion of our workforce; none from the Indian industry — the same partners it wants to raise money from; and no Indian entrepreneur — the ones that have developed products for our country. 

The committees look like any other government committee — composed of secretaries like any other high-power government committee. While nothing is wrong, it raises the suspicion that this could be an old wine in a new bottle scenario. 

While giving ANRF the benefit of the doubt and time to move things on the ground, I have yet to see much to feel sanguine.

Binay Panda is a professor at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi

Views expressed are the author’s own and don’t necessarily reflect those of Down To Earth