On February 5, the Anusandhan National Research Foundation (ANRF) Act came into effect. ANRF, which aims to be a research funding organisation and subsumed the very similar Science and Engineering Research Board (SERB) established in 2008, is supposed to have a corpus of ₹50,000 Crores.
Despite the tall claims, reports suggest that the actual funds allocated for ANRF have been measly so far.
The inadequate and insufficient funding for science and research has been a major hindrance to the scientific and research community in India. The budget allocation to science has also remained a minuscule percentage much to the chagrin of the community.
Dr. Swami Subramaniam, CEO of Ignite Life Science Foundation | Photo Credit: Special arrangement
Dr. Swami Subramaniam, CEO of Bengaluru-based Ignite Life Science Foundation, has a slightly different view, although he agrees that inadequate funding for science has been a critical problem in India.
“Science is not even in the top 10 categories for India. There are other sectors like defence, healthcare and so on which need more attention and more money,” he says.
“As long as our GDP does not match that of bigger economies like the USA or China, there is no point in saying that our allocation to science should be similar to theirs. In India, I believe, spending on science should be outcomes-driven. We should work backwards to see what kinds of science we should do depending on our priorities and how much we should spend to generate those outcomes,” he adds.
The team working on increasing nitrogen use efficiency via modulation of Phytoglobins and NOx scavenging mechanisms, a research initiative supported by Ignite LSF. | Photo Credit: Special arrangement
In an interview with The Hindu, Dr. Subramaniam talks about the need to fund quality research, the importance of cross-border collaboration of scientists and Ignite’s role in facilitating them.
Can you elaborate on outcomes-driven research?
There are Indian priorities in science, especially in applied aspects of science.
For example, we have a lingering infectious disease problem which has now converted into an antimicrobial resistance problem. While this is a problem everywhere in the world, it’s much worse in India because of the nature of medical practice and the use of medicines here. It’s more of a critical threat here. Antibiotics are not being developed at all here.
So that’s an area wherein India can play. We can make significant strides and we can contribute to the global efforts to combat this problem. Obvious areas like tuberculosis would be where we should invest money.
How does Ignite LSF work towards this?
Unless we invest the money in the best quality science, we’re just going to churn the ocean. That is where I think Ignite plays a role.
We are, as a funding agency, miniscule. We have done about ₹20 crores of funding over three years. So, we are not going to make a difference by saying we come with a lot of money.
But what we can do is engage very closely with the scientists, whom we fund. We coach them and mentor them.
We have a slightly different selection process for the scientists whom we fund compared to national agencies like the DBT or DST. We are extremely selective of not just the scientific idea, but also about the investigator. That coupling of the right investigator with the right idea is going to generate the best outcome.
What is the state of science funding in India currently?
Most investigators are not suffering from a lack of funding but from a lack of consistent, reliable fund flow. The scientists in top research institutes like IISc have been allocated crores of rupees. But an allocation doesn’t mean that they get the money. Although they are all pretty fund-rich, they still apply to Ignite.
It is a fact that Indian scientists don’t get money on time. It is heart-wrenching to see the kind of suffering we put these people through. A lot of research staff depend only on the research project funding.
How do you assess the impact created by your funding?
We are not passive; we actively try to create impact. If we identify something that is of value, we will work with the investigator to make sure that value is realized in the fastest manner possible. For example, some of our investigators do not necessarily file an intellectual property patent. We counsel them to file it soon so that they protect their IP.
Then we put them in touch with the development folks.
Translational science is of two types. One is called pull translation, where a pharmaceutical company needs an idea, and they actively seek investigators and scientists and pull the idea into their lab.
Since we don’t have a large number of pharma companies doing drug discovery in India, we don’t have powerful pull translation. So, we need more push translation. We need our investigators to understand how drugs are developed and do some of that early de-risking and drug development work themselves.
At Ignite since many of us, including myself, have worked in industry we can give the investigators skills and knowledge they don’t have. I think DBT and DST will do well to create some kind of a program where skills in push translation are provided either through training or consulting.
How many projects have you supported so far? Have you seen a geographical pattern?
We have funded around 20 so far.
We get proposals from all across the country. But in the end invariably researchers from IISc, IITs or IISER get funded. There is no bias. It just so happens that the best proposal comes from these institutes given that they are the best research institutes in the country currently.
One limitation is that some of the money we get is from CSR and CSR money cannot be given to private universities. Therefore, we have to deny funding even for good private universities. It is a very sad thing because there are some emerging Centres of Excellence, and they need this kind of funding. And we need competition for government institutions. So, we are trying to create a pool of funding targeting centres of excellence in private universities.
Bengaluru is known as the science capital of India. Do you see the best research emerging from the city?
Not necessarily. In life science interdisciplinary research is going to be the most productive. While IISc does some interdisciplinary research, I think the IITs are a little ahead. So, I believe that the leaders are going to be from places like IIT Kanpur, IIT Madras, and IIT Bombay. Paradoxically, engineering institutes are going to produce the best life science research.
It’s a commentary on our life science research community. The nature of science has become so interdisciplinary now compared to what it was 20-30 years ago.
Our medical institutes are doing poorly in terms of research. Medical institutes must do good research because they have clinical material, patient samples and patients. A lot of hypotheses can be tested in real-life situations. So, the application also will happen faster. All of our medical colleges should be thought hotbeds of good research, but they are not, except for a few like AIIMS, JIPMER and so on. Even they are not performing to their fullest potential.
What’s the gap between the research in such premier institutes and others?
Huge. That’s mainly because we create a large community and then we push them to various corners of the country. For example, there’s an IISER in Berhampur. It’s harder to get faculty to come there. Secondly being away from the city, it takes time if you want to get some equipment or service there.
You don’t need acres of land for good institutes. You need good quality building space.
What are the kinds of benchmarks we should have?
We should have benchmarks for the quality of research. For example, the number of citations a top scientist in India gets compared to the number of citations a top scientist in the U.S. gets within the same field. We should try to do our best with the money we have and be highly productive.
What should the different stakeholders ensure to facilitate an ecosystem for that?
I think Indian scientists will do very well to collaborate with their counterparts elsewhere. We should have in place systems and mechanisms to promote trans-border collaboration. Automatically the science will improve.
We are working on developing a platform for scientists to collaborate seamlessly across borders. It’s in the beta phase. You can call it a ‘Slack for the scientists.’
