Draft Science, Technology and Innovation Policy

Why in news?

The government has recently released the draft 5th national Science, Technology and Innovation Policy (STIP).

Why is this significant?

The policy outlines strategies for strengthening India’s STI ecosystem to achieve the larger goal of Atmanirbhar Bharat.
Previous STI policies were largely top-driven in formulation.
The present STIP follows core principles of being decentralised, evidence-informed, bottom-up, experts-driven, and inclusive.
It aims to be dynamic, with a robust policy governance mechanism that includes periodic review, evaluation, feedback, and adaptation.
Most importantly, there is a timely exit strategy for policy instruments.

What are the objectives?

The STIP will be guided by the vision of positioning India among the top three scientific superpowers in the decade to come.
The aim is to -
- attract, nurture, strengthen, and retain critical human capital through a people-centric STI ecosystem
- double the number of full-time equivalent (FTE) researchers, gross domestic expenditure on R&D (GERD) and private-sector contribution to GERD every 5 years
- build individual and institutional excellence in STI with the aim of reaching the highest levels of global recognition and awards in the coming decade

What is the Open Science Framework?

STIP provides a forward-looking, all-encompassing Open Science Framework to provide free access for all to findings from publicly funded research.
Private-sector researchers, students, and institutions will have the same accessibility.
Output from research that is not funded by the government will be outside the purview of this framework. However, they will be encouraged to participate.
This framework will be largely community-driven, and supported with necessary institutional mechanisms and operational modalities.
Open Science fosters more equitable participation in science through increased access to research output. It ensures -
1. greater transparency and accountability in research
2. inclusiveness
3. better resource utilisation through minimal restrictions on reuse of research output and infrastructure
4. a constant exchange of knowledge between the producers and users of knowledge

What is the rationale for One Nation, One Subscription?

The policy proposes buying bulk subscriptions for all journals.
It thereby envisions free access to all journals, Indian and foreign, for every Indian against a centrally-negotiated payment mechanism.
Scientists are producers of scientific knowledge in the form of scholarly articles.
But the consumers of this knowledge such as line departments, innovators, industry, the society at large, etc. are several times larger in number.
In the present mechanisms, they do not have access to this knowledge.
R&D institutions in India spend huge amounts of money subscribing to journals, especially the international high impact-factor ones.
As per a rough estimate, this amount comes to nearly Rs 1,500 crore per annum.
But still, only a third of the country’s total 3.5 lakh-odd researchers get access to these journals.
Under STIP’s payment mechanism, the amount may be higher than what institutions together pay today, but will facilitate access to India’s over 1.3 billion people.
The larger idea behind One Nation, One Subscription is thus to democratise science.

How about participation of women in Science?

Over the last 6 years, women’s participation in S&T has doubled in India; however, overall participation of women in R&D continues to be only about 16%.
There has been considerable improvement in the participation of women in science education both at the Bachelor’s and Master’s levels (53% and 55% respectively as per AISHE 2019).
However, there is a persistent gap at the doctoral level between male (56%) and female graduates (44%).
In this context, policy interventions in Science will bring transformative change.
In this regard, the STIP has made recommendations such as -
1. mandatory positions for excluded groups in academics
2. 30% representation of women in selection/evaluation committees and decision-making groups
3. addressing issues related to career breaks for women by considering academic age rather than biological/physical age
4. a dual recruitment policy for couples
5. institutionalisation of equity and inclusion by establishing an Office of Equity and Inclusion, etc

What does the policy say about funding in R&D?

India’s gross domestic expenditure on R&D (GERD) stands at 0.6% of GDP.
This is quite low compared to other major economies that have a GERD-to-GDP ratio of 1.5% to 3%.
This can be attributed to inadequate private sector investment (less than 40%) in R&D activities in India.
In technologically advanced countries, the private sector contributes close to 70% of GERD.
STIP has made some major recommendations in this regard, such as -

expansion of the STI funding landscape at the central and state levels
enhanced incentivisation mechanisms for leveraging the private sector’s R&D participation

The policy also offers creative avenues for collaborative STI funding through a portfolio-based funding mechanism.
It is called the Advanced Missions in Innovative Research Ecosystem (ADMIRE) programme.
It supports distributed and localised collaborative mission-oriented projects through a long-term investment strategy.
A national STI Financing Authority, along with an STI Development Bank, needs to be set up to direct long-term investments in select strategic areas.
The STIP also suggests modification or waiver of General Financial Rules (GFR), for large-scale mission mode programmes and projects of national importance.

Source: The Indian Express