Swarita De Social Vision, Vol: 11 Issue: 1

April – June, 2024, Pages: 78-96

ISSN 2349-0519
RNI: APENG/2014/56403
General Impact Factor (2017): 2.3222
Cosmos Impact Factor (2018): 3.631

A Study of Innovation and Technological

Advancement Pillar of Knowledge Economy in the
Context of Covid-19 Pandemic
Swarita De
Assistant Professor, ASMSOC, NMIMS (Deemed to be) University, Mumbai,
Maharashtra, India. Email: [email protected]

ABSTRACT
The World Bank (2004) has noted that the knowledge economy helps to
creates, disseminates and uses knowledge to accelerate growth and
competitiveness in the economy. According to the World Bank, the
knowledge economy rests on four major pillars which are first, an
economic and institutional regime; second, education and training; third,
innovation and technological advancement; fourth, information and
communication technology. Indian economy faced severe crisis due to the
unprecedented economic shock from Covid-19. However, the pandemic
has opened innumerable opportunities in the domain of Knowledge
Economy. To cope up with the aftermath of the pandemic and the
associated economic shocks, the importance of the knowledge economy
and its four pillars has become more important. The importance of
Research and Development (R&D) has also been recognized highly in the
context of the inventing necessary vaccines to combat the deadly corona
virus. The importance of the involvement of medical practitioners,
researchers, innovators and the industry-pharmacy inter linkages in the
health sector in general and medical research in particular has become
more prominent. Again, the role of traditional knowledge towards
physical immunity development has also become important. The present
study is an attempt to explore the status of innovation and technological
advancement pillar of knowledge economy and the performances in
individual states of India.
Keywords: Knowledge Economy, Innovation, Technology

Cite this Article: Swarita, D. (2024). A Study of Innovation and Technological

1.Advancement
IntroductionPillar of Knowledge Economy in the Context of Covid-19
Pandemic. Social Vision, 11 (1), pp: 78-96

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As India emerged as the fifth largest economy, the establishment of systems

that foster innovation and technological advancement are critical to sustain
India’s position as an emerging economy and its transition to knowledge-
based economy. India declared as 2010-2020 as the “Decade of Innovation”.
Moreover, with demographic transition of India, there is a ‘window of
opportunity’ which if exploited appropriately would generate greater
potential for ‘demographic dividend’.

The Global Innovation Index, which is published annually, has been a

leading reference for measuring an economy’s innovation performance.
Recently, India was ranked 40th position out of 132 in the Global
Innovation Index (GII) 2022 rankings released by World Intellectual
Property Organisation (WIPO). India is the innovation leader in the lower
middle-income group. It continues to lead the world in ICT services exports
and holds top rankings in other indicators, including venture capital receipt
value, finance for start-ups and scaleups, graduates in science and
engineering, labor productivity growth and domestic industry diversification.

The GII 2022 also outlines the positive effects of two novel innovation
waves, although it emphasizes that such effects would take some time to be
realized: First, a digital age innovation wave built on supercomputing,
artificial intelligence, and automation.; Second, a Deep Science innovation
wave built on breakthroughs in biotechnologies, nanotechnologies, new
materials, and other sciences. The effects are first, making ample
productivity impacts across all sectors and fields of scientific research and
second, revolutionizing innovations in health, food, environment, and
mobility (four fields of key importance to society).

In the above context, large scale investment in education and health

contributes to human resource development and therefore, higher
importance is accorded to careers related to science and engineering,
medicine, management studies and qualifying for government jobs. In the
process of exploiting the demographic bonus, the expansion of scientific
research and knowledge turned retrograde and failed to attract the youth and
talent towards scientific enterprise. However, investing in science,
technology and innovation is fundamental to address India’s development
challenges such as climate change and national security considerations that

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ranges from emerging threats of cyberwarfare to autonomous military

systems for example drones (Economic Survey, 2017-18).

2. Review of Literature
The Innovation and Technological Advancement pillar of Knowledge
Economy focusses on the importance of research and development
investments and the generation of technical knowledge. The innovation
level is captured by research inputs and outputs such as number of
researchers, publications, patents and trademarks of an economy and their
contribution to productivity growth.

Lederman and Maloney (2003) apply panel data analysis for the period
1975 to 2000 over 53 countries and investigates that R&D rises
exponentially with the level of development measured by GDP per capita.
The paper provides evidence that a one percentage point increase in the ratio
of total R&D expenditure to GDP leads to 0.78 percentage point increase in
the growth rate of GDP.
Garber (2013) discusses that China, India and Brazil create policies to
develop domestic innovation ecosystems. The three countries continue to
attract foreign R&D investments to become innovative, however non-
enforcement of non-competes fail to promote this objective.

Theoretical literature and empirical evidence on the subject of patents and

innovation has become increasingly important in the context of knowledge
based economy. The earliest work in this area can be traced back to the
analysis of optimal patent design of Nordhaus (1969) which considers
optimal patent length as a policy variable. He studies the patent system as
one which gives monopoly power to the innovators on a temporary basis to
stimulate innovation. Innovative inducing effects involve a trade-off
between static losses and inefficiencies associated with monopoly
protection, and dynamic social gains inducing innovative investments and
promoting diffusion of technological knowledge.
During the 1990s, both optimal patent length and patent scope, that is,
breadth of a patent protection is considered in the analysis of patents. Definitions
of patent scope differ in the literature on patents in inducing innovative
effort. Patent scope is either defined as the broader area of differentiated
technology space covered by patent grant (Klemperer, 1990) or it is defined
in terms of the cost of imitation that the rivals incurs (Gallini, 1992).

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To address the issue of the impact of patent rights propensity on innovation,

Arora, Ceccagnoli and Cohen (2003) uses firm level data on R&D, patent
application and patent propensity. Their study shows that on an average,
patents are not much effective due to skewness in the distribution of
premium that is conditional on patenting. Their model finds that strong
patent protection in a specific area for a single firm has positive externality
for other firms in that area. It also finds that patents have a positive
incentive effect on R&D in technology intensive sectors such as
pharmaceuticals, biotechnology, medical equipment and computers.

Patent protection is not a crucial incentive for generation of innovation.

Instead, alternative means of innovation protection prevail, such as, first
mover advantage and maintaining confidentiality. To evaluate the impact of
patent protection on innovation, data on patent renewal fees is used as an
indicator of the value of patent protection. This is because a renewal fee is
paid if the expected future gain is higher than the threshold cost incurred to
keep a patent in operating state. Cohen, Nelson and Walsh (1996) works on
the value of patent protection derived from survey of firms. Schankerman
(1998) makes an econometric attempt to quantify the private value of patent
protection by using patent renewal data.

Kanwar and Evenson (2003) enquire whether more stringent protection of

Intellectual Property Rights would motivate technological change and
encourage innovation. They use cross country panel data on R&D
investment, patent protection and other country specific characteristics over
the period 1981-1990.
3. Objective of the Study
The broad objective of the paper is to investigate the ‘Innovation and
Technological Advancement pillar’ of World Bank’s Knowledge
Assessment Methodology in the Indian context and examine the relative
status of Information and Communication Infrastructure in different states
of India. In the light of the basic objective, the specific objective is to
examine in-depth the progress of this pillar by exploring alternative
indicators towards analysing the status of Knowledge Economy of different
states of India.
4. Data and Method
The Knowledge Assessment Methodology framework developed by the
World Bank considers a set of 76 structural and qualitative variables for 121

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countries. 14 core variables are used as proxies to monitor the four pillars
that are crucial for the development of a knowledge-based economy. The
four pillars are Education and training; Innovation and Technological
Advancement: Information and Communication Technology Infrastructure;
and Economic Incentive and Institutional Regime.

The stakeholders of a country’s innovation system must be capable of

exploiting the growing stock of global knowledge and assimilating and
adapting such knowledge to meet the local needs and it also refers to
developing and creating new technology. To cope up with the aftermath of
the pandemic and the associated economic shocks, the importance of
Research and Development (R&D) has also been recognized highly in the
context of the inventing necessary vaccines to combat the deadly corona
virus. Researchers in Research and Development (per million population),
Patent application granted by USPTO (per million populations) and
Scientific and Technical Journal articles (per million populations) are the
indicators of Innovation System and Technological Advancement. (World
Bank 2004). Since the objective of the present study is to explore the
Innovation and Technological Advancement pillar of knowledge economy
and their performances in individual states of India, several suitable and
alternative indicators are conceived to examine the preparedness of the
Indian states. The states which have recorded information on all the
alternative indicators of the Innovation and Technological Advancement
pillar of knowledge economy variables have only been considered for our
analysis. This accounts for a total of 25 selected states of India. This study
has thus been conducted with the reference to the pre-pandemic period in
order to understand India’s preparedness in Innovation and Technological
Advancement to withstand Covid-19 effect and consequences.

The selection of variables and the data sources for Innovation and
Technological Advancement pillar of knowledge economy is discussed as
follows. Patents and publications in journals are fundamental output
indicators of innovation and technological development of a country. The
intensity of output of R&D activities is measured by number of scientific
publications and patents granted per million people. On one hand, the
number of journal publications reflects a country’s competence in science,
and on the other, patents reflect a country’s position in technology vis-à-vis
other counties of the world. A critical input for Research and Development

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is a well-trained and skilled workforce engaged in research and

developmental activities. This includes among others the number of students
enrolled in Ph.D. programme and awarded the doctoral degrees either in the
country or students who obtain their degrees from abroad. In this context,
universities play a crucial role in building the talent pool for research and
also generating qualitatively rich research output (Tremblay, Lalancette, &
Roseveare, 2012); (Government of India, 2011).

Variables considered to analyse the Innovation pillar of knowledge

economy are number of Ph.D.’s awarded as a proxy for Researchers in
R&D, Patent application and Publications. Data sources related to this pillar
has been obtained from Selected Educational Statistics, MHRD for number
of Ph.D.’s awarded, Annual Reports of The Office of the Controller General
of Patents, Designs, Trademarks and Geographical Indications, India for
Patent applications, and Indian Citation Index for total number of publications.

Steps in the computation of the Normalized Score for the Innovation and
Technological Advancement pillar:
1. The actual values of each of the modified variables are determined.
2. Ranks are assigned to each state for the three variables individually.
3. A normalized score for the four variables for the selected states are
computed
4. Overall normalized score for the Innovation and Technological
Advancement pillar is calculated by taking the average of the four
normalized scores for each state.

The normalized score on each variable for each state is computed in the
following manner.

Normalized Score =
No.of states below the particular state in rank based on the variable
Total number of states under consideration

A state normalized score on a particular variable between 0.9 to 1.0 implies

that the state is in the top 10 percentile amongst other states on the basis of
its performance on that variable. Similarly, a state normalized score on a
particular variable between 0.1 to 0.2 implies that the state is in the bottom
20 percentile but above the bottom 10 percentile amongst other states on the
basis of its performance on that variable.

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5. Analysis and Interpretation

Table 1 contains data on Patents granted per 1000 population for selected
States in 2018. In Table 2 ranks on Patents granted is assigned to each state
in decreasing order, based on which normalized scores are computed. Data
on Patents granted reveals that Delhi has the best performance on this
variable while Madhya Pradesh and Bihar have performed the worst. The
normalized score of Uttar Pradesh, Telangana and Odisha is between 0.2 to 0.3.

Table 1: Selected State-wise Patents granted per 1000 population in 2018

Population Patents granted per
States/UTs Patents
in '000 1000 population
Andhra Pradesh 104 52221 0.0020
Assam 6 34293 0.0002
Bihar 0 119520 0.0000
Chandigarh 8 1179 0.0068
Chhattisgarh 5 28724 0.0002
Delhi 451 19814 0.0228
Goa 5 1540 0.0032
Gujarat 60 67936 0.0009
Haryana 37 28672 0.0013
Himachal Pradesh 5 7300 0.0007
Jharkhand 90 37403 0.0024
Karnataka 143 65798 0.0022
Kerala 23 35125 0.0007
Madhya Pradesh 9 82232 0.0001
Maharashtra 474 122153 0.0039
Mizoram 1 1192 0.0008
Odisha 13 43671 0.0003
Puducherry 2 1504 0.0013
Punjab 25 29859 0.0008
Rajasthan 17 77264 0.0002
Tamil Nadu 153 75695 0.0020
Telangana 11 37220 0.0003
Uttar Pradesh 65 224979 0.0003
Uttarakhand 7 11141 0.0006
West Bengal 158 96906 0.0016
Source: Annual Reports of the Controller General of Patents, Designs and
Trade Marks, 2018.

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Table 2: Ranking of States Based on the Number of Patents granted in 2018

Patents granted per Normalized
States/UTs Rank
1000 population Score
Delhi 0.0228 1 0.96
Chandigarh 0.0068 2 0.92
Maharashtra 0.0039 3 0.88
Goa 0.0032 4 0.84
Jharkhand 0.0024 5 0.8
Karnataka 0.0022 6 0.76
Tamil Nadu 0.0020 7 0.72
Andhra Pradesh 0.0020 8 0.68
West Bengal 0.0016 9 0.64
Puducherry 0.0013 10 0.6
Haryana 0.0013 11 0.56
Gujarat 0.0009 12 0.52
Mizoram 0.0008 13 0.48
Punjab 0.0008 14 0.44
Himachal Pradesh 0.0007 15 0.4
Kerala 0.0007 16 0.36
Uttarakhand 0.0006 17 0.32
Odisha 0.0003 18 0.28
Telangana 0.0003 19 0.24
Uttar Pradesh 0.0003 20 0.2
Rajasthan 0.0002 21 0.16
Assam 0.0002 22 0.12
Chhattisgarh 0.0002 23 0.08
Madhya Pradesh 0.0001 24 0.04
Bihar 0.0000 25 0
Source: Based on Author’s Calculations

In Table 3 the number of Ph.D. Turn-out per 1000 populations for the 25
states in 2019 is given. Table 4 ranks each state according to the number of
Ph.D. Turn-out and then the normalized scores are calculated. Chandigarh
and Bihar records the best and the worst performance respectively for
number of Ph.D. Turn-out. However, Telangana projected a better
performance in Ph.D. Turn-out compared to Patents granted.

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Table 3: Selected State-wise Ph.D. Turn-out per 1000 population in 2019

Population Ph.D. turnout per
States/UTs Ph.D Turn-out
in '000 1000 population
Andhra Pradesh 1891 52221 0.0362
Assam 3738 34293 0.1090
Bihar 615 119520 0.0051
Chandigarh 570 1179 0.4835
Chhattisgarh 358 28724 0.0125
Delhi 2544 19814 0.1284
Goa 96 1540 0.0623
Gujarat 1367 67936 0.0201
Haryana 837 28672 0.0292
Himachal Pradesh 205 7300 0.0281
Jharkhand 523 37403 0.0140
Karnataka 3350 65798 0.0509
Kerala 1096 35125 0.0312
Madhya Pradesh 1198 82232 0.0146
Maharashtra 2869 122153 0.0235
Mizoram 58 1192 0.0487
Odisha 964 43671 0.0221
Puducherry 97 1504 0.0645
Punjab 746 29859 0.0250
Rajasthan 2147 77264 0.0278
Tamil Nadu 5324 75695 0.0703
Telangana 1345 37220 0.0361
Uttar Pradesh 3315 224979 0.0147
Uttarakhand 894 11141 0.0802
West Bengal 1917 96906 0.0198
Source: Calculations on the basis of data collected from 10th Report on All
India. Survey on Higher Education (AISHE) Government of India, Ministry
of Human Resource Development, Department of Higher Education, 2019-
2020.

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Table 4: Ranking of States Based on the Number of Ph.D. Turn-out in 2019

Ph.D. turnout per Normalized
States/UTs Rank
1000 population Score
Chandigarh 0.4835 1 0.96
Delhi 0.1284 2 0.92
Assam 0.1090 3 0.88
Uttarakhand 0.0802 4 0.84
Tamil Nadu 0.0703 5 0.8
Puducherry 0.0645 6 0.76
Goa 0.0623 7 0.72
Karnataka 0.0509 8 0.68
Mizoram 0.0487 9 0.64
Andhra Pradesh 0.0362 10 0.6
Telangana 0.0361 11 0.56
Kerala 0.0312 12 0.52
Haryana 0.0292 13 0.48
Himachal Pradesh 0.0281 14 0.44
Rajasthan 0.0278 15 0.4
Punjab 0.0250 16 0.36
Maharashtra 0.0235 17 0.32
Odisha 0.0221 18 0.28
Gujarat 0.0201 19 0.24
West Bengal 0.0198 20 0.2
Uttar Pradesh 0.0147 21 0.16
Madhya Pradesh 0.0146 22 0.12
Jharkhand 0.0140 23 0.08
Chhattisgarh 0.0125 24 0.04
Bihar 0.0051 25 0
Source: Based on Author’s Calculations
Table 5 gives data on Publications per 1000 populations in 2019. States are
ranked on the basis of Publications and normalized scores are determined in

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Table 6. Chandigarh projects the best performance and Bihar is at the

bottom in the case of Publications. In case of Publications, Odisha records a
deterioration in comparison with Patents granted and Ph.D. Turn-outs in
which the state performed with identical score.

Table 5: Selected State-wise Publications per 1000 population in 2017

Population Publications granted per
States/UTs Publications
in '000 1000 population
Andhra Pradesh 17173 52221 0.3289
Assam 6382 34293 0.1861
Bihar 4410 119520 0.0369
Chandigarh 5983 1179 5.0746
Chhattisgarh 4504 28724 0.1568
Delhi 34276 19814 1.7299
Goa 1280 1540 0.8312
Gujarat 17506 67936 0.2577
Haryana 15045 28672 0.5247
Himachal Pradesh 6308 7300 0.8641
Jharkhand 3999 37403 0.1069
Karnataka 42425 65798 0.6448
Kerala 13200 35125 0.3758
Madhya Pradesh 14284 82232 0.1737
Maharashtra 50564 122153 0.4139
Mizoram 538 1192 0.4513
Odisha 8055 43671 0.1844
Puducherry 4504 1504 2.9947
Punjab 15161 29859 0.5078
Rajasthan 16231 77264 0.2101
Tamil Nadu 19,814 75695 0.2618
Telangana 19565 37220 0.5257
Uttar Pradesh 41645 224979 0.1851
Uttarakhand 12288 11141 1.1030
West Bengal 22805 96906 0.2353
Source: Calculations on the basis of data collected from Indian Citation
Index, Confederation of Indian Industries,2017

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Table 6: Ranking of States Based on the Number of Publications in 2017

Publications per
States/UTs Rank Normalized Score
1000 population
Chandigarh 5.0746 1 0.96
Puducherry 2.9947 2 0.92
Delhi 1.7299 3 0.88
Uttarakhand 1.1030 4 0.84
Himachal Pradesh 0.8641 5 0.8
Goa 0.8312 6 0.76
Karnataka 0.6448 7 0.72
Telangana 0.5257 8 0.68
Haryana 0.5247 9 0.64
Punjab 0.5078 10 0.6
Mizoram 0.4513 11 0.56
Maharashtra 0.4139 12 0.52
Kerala 0.3758 13 0.48
Andhra Pradesh 0.3289 14 0.44
Tamil Nadu 0.2618 15 0.4
Gujarat 0.2577 16 0.36
West Bengal 0.2353 17 0.32
Rajasthan 0.2101 18 0.28
Assam 0.1861 19 0.24
Uttar Pradesh 0.1851 20 0.2
Odisha 0.1844 21 0.16
Madhya Pradesh 0.1737 22 0.12
Chhattisgarh 0.1568 23 0.08
Jharkhand 0.1069 24 0.04
Bihar 0.0369 25 0
Source: Based on Author’s Calculations
The overall normalized score for the Innovation and Technological
Advancement Pillar is presented in Table 7. The overall score is computed

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by taking the average of the normalized scores of the three variables for
each state. Due to its best performance in two out of three indicators,
Chandigarh projects to be the best performer in the Innovation and
Technological Advancement Pillar. Due to poor performance in almost all
the three variables, Bihar remain at the bottom in terms of Innovation and
Technological Advancement Pillar with no relative change in position after
the computation of the overall normalized score.

Table 7: Overall Normalized Score for the Innovation and

Technological Advancement Pillar
States/UTs Normalized Score Rank
Chandigarh 0.9467 1
Delhi 0.9200 2
Goa 0.7733 3
Puducherry 0.7600 4
Karnataka 0.7200 5
Uttarakhand 0.6667 6
Tamil Nadu 0.6400 7
Andhra Pradesh 0.5733 8
Maharashtra 0.5733 9
Haryana 0.5600 10
Mizoram 0.5600 11
Himachal Pradesh 0.5467 12
Telangana 0.4933 13
Punjab 0.4667 14
Kerala 0.4533 15
Assam 0.4133 16
West Bengal 0.3867 17
Gujarat 0.3733 18
Jharkhand 0.3067 19
Rajasthan 0.2800 20
Odisha 0.2400 21
Uttar Pradesh 0.1867 22
Madhya Pradesh 0.0933 23
Chhattisgarh 0.0667 24
Bihar 0.0000 25
Source: Based on Author’s Calculations

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6. Policy recommendations
With regards to Innovation, there is a need to increase investment in R&D
and also a requirement to address the efficient use and effective
implementation of R&D through speedy commercialization of the same in
the states that performed negligibly in innovation and technological
advancement. The government needs to play a dominant role in carrying out
R&D activities and promoting it among the key players of innovation and
technology. Although the bulk of the research activities are observed to be
funded by private players, yet, the Government is the primary source of
funding such R&D in India and is also the major user of these funding. With
regards to states and their performance, the role of the State Government is
much larger; it must focus on R&D that will address the state specific issues
and aim at solving problems by application oriented development strategies.
i) Strong Foundation of Primary and Secondary Education: A vibrant
super structure of Research and Development depends on strong
foundations of primary and secondary education. This will reflect that a
relatively greater proportion of the population of an economy is equipped to
access technology, harness the benefits of science and produce intellect and
cognitive skills. Thus the curriculum of schools needs to be more receptive
of mathematics and basic scientific knowledge in order to produce
analytically sound and scientifically aligned and application oriented human
capital resources. Mathematics possesses two special advantages in the
Indian context: First, Mathematics is not capital-intensive; second, there
exist universal standards of excellence. Therefore, a National Mission of
Mathematics is expected to improve teaching and content delivery of
mathematics across all levels of higher education. Moreover, establishment
of institutes of mathematical science within existing institutions; conduct of
annual district, state and national math Olympiad competitions accompanied
by considerable scholarships for all winners, would motivate a rapidly
increasing human capital formation and research profile in mathematics in
the phase of India’s demographic dividend.
ii) Shift towards Investigator Driven Research Model: India needs to
shift towards relatively more share of an investigator driven research model
in order to attract more funding for scientific research. Investigator driven
research aim to create new knowledge and/or add new knowledge to the
existing pool and over time the benefits are wide spread and far reaching

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accompanied by positive externalities for the future generations. This

therefore advocates that research projects be cutting-edge, contributing to
the global pool of knowhow and focusing on pressing issue of society and
mankind, namely healthcare. For example, investigator initiated studies or
research models help society at large “by generating data on effectiveness
and safety of a drug in the real-world setting and attempt to answer
questions that clinicians encounter in their day-to-day practice” (Konwar, et
al. 2018, pp 179). These are studies that are “initiated and managed by the
non-pharmaceutical company researcher/s who acts as an individual
investigator, an institution or a group of institution, and a collaborative
study group or a cooperative group” (Konwar, et al. 2018, pp 180). There
are several benefits of conducting investigator-led research; however, there
exist myriad challenges that range from finances, regulatory submissions,
continuous surveillance, training of subject study personnel, lack of
statistical expertise, data management and especially clinical notes and
medical transcription. Nonetheless, investigator-led model are rewarding in
terms of policy prescription and impact analysis and also contributing to
evidence. Establishment of Science and Engineering Research Board
(SERB) in 2008, which is a statutory body of Department of science and
Technology (DST) is an important step towards investigator-led research.
However, expansion of similar investigator-led research is required through
setting up of research bodies and through governance structure.

iii) Increase in Funding Capacity for Research: Universities in the

advanced economies secure the largest share of research funds from their
governments, whereas approximately ten percent of government research
funds in India flow to universities. Thus the incapacity of research funding
can be met by an increase in funding capacity for research and development
by both the private as well as the public sector. This can also include Public-
Private-Partnership (PPP) wherein the government can work with the
private sector to expand the existing R&D activities and create new R&D
funding opportunities by accommodating the vested interests of the private
sector. Moreover, the private sector’s contribution to R&D of innovative
drugs go beyond the development and marketing expenditures to include
basic and applied science, discovery technologies and manufacturing
protocols. Research in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics
(STEM) is necessary to incentivize the private sector as there is need to

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invest in application oriented research that are aimed at addressing the

problems of economy and society, and thereby providing solutions to the
same. This requires state intervention at university level education to
stimulate knowledge and research related to agriculture, ecology,
environment which might provide state-specific solution of development
strategy. With increasing public sector funding available for R&D available
at one hand and increasing scientific complexity and medical requirements
on the other, there is an urgent need for private sector to collaborate with
academia and institutions. The government has a key role to play at least in
controlling the medical innovations and the discovery of new drugs.

iv) Creation of Knowledge Ecosystem: There is a requirement to create

new knowledge ecosystem by linking national laboratories and research
organizations to universities and institutes. Further this link can be extended
to commercial sector which can help develop industrial clusters depending
on researchers’ strength and inclination. This will facilitate laying the
foundations of innovation driven “smart cities”. National laboratories are
considered as innovation power house and they play an indispensable role in
building a nation’s innovation capacity and driving economic development.
Collaboration with the commercial sector is instrumental in the transition of
R&D from laboratories to market, thereby mutually benefitting all
stakeholders and without compromising the public benefit. A series of
measures have been implemented by the government to stem the tide of
acquiring a position among the top five global scientific powers and
encouraging reverse migration of a number of researchers to India. Science,
Technology and Innovation (STI) Policy, 2013 aims to produce and nurture
talent in science; to stimulate research in Indian universities; to develop a
young pool of researchers in the field of science; to create a policy
environment for greater private sector participation in research and
innovation; and to furnace international alliances and collaborations to meet
the national innovation agenda. Besides, there exist numerous programs to
stimulate innovation such as Ramanujan Fellowship Scheme, Innovation in
Science Pursuit for Inspired Research (INSPIRE) Faculty Scheme,
Ramalingaswami Re-entry Fellowship, Visiting Advanced Joint Research
Faculty Scheme (VAJRA), etc. Although there exist several government
programs, fellowships and faculty schemes for research, such schemes
could be enhanced to leverage the opportunities to facilitate recruitment of

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researchers to build research groups. Further, incentive framework should

be established that would provide inducement for quality research through
provision of resources such as laboratories with instruments and apparatus
for research activity, post-doctoral research and recruitment, and
accommodation adjacent to research space. In order to ensure a level-
playing field to domestic talent and inhibit the brain drain to western
countries, Indian science and research institutes and organizations requires
the opening of diverse and creative conduits. This is so because researchers
and scientists who have migrated to the western world can be regarded as
recoverable assets who can play a decisive role in developing opportunities
at the home front. Greater involvement of professionals living abroad
(through establishment and development of graduate education
opportunities at home ground, building an enlightened leadership and an
enabling scientific community) would help establish opportunities at home
that would favour retention and repatriation of the national talent. This
would also motivate the coherent development of scientific and
technological capacity in the country. Furthermore, the scientific diaspora of
India requires indoctrinating relatively less hierarchical system of
governance and comparatively more flexible administration and
encouragement towards risk-taking capabilities in the pursuit of quality.

7 Concluding Remarks
With globalization and the emergence of new paradigms in innovations,
expedited with the ubiquitous intrusion of internet, the key drivers of
economic performance are identified as science, technology and innovation.
India has emerged as the fifth largest economy; the establishment of
systems that foster innovation and technological advancement are therefore
critical to sustain India’s position as an emerging economy and its transition
to knowledge-based economy. Performance in innovation and technological
advancement is studied on the basis of the inputs and outputs in
transforming science and technology. Research and Development (R&D)
Expenditure and Researchers in R&D are considered as inputs to innovation
and technological improvement. The outputs to advances in innovation and
technology are publications and patents that help assess the productivity and
quality of research. Researchers are professionals who conduct research and
improve or develop concepts, theories, models, techniques, instrumentation,
and software of operational methods. R & D covers basic research, applied

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research and experimental development. Doctoral graduates are

fundamental players in research and innovation since they are important for
knowledge diffusion. Patents are relevant since they stimulate invention,
innovation and technological breakthrough through protection of industrial
design and trade secrets.

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