Why in News?

• A special session was held to discuss India’s Research and Development (R&D) expenditure eco-system report during the Global launch of Global Innovation Index (GII) – 2019 in New Delhi. The report has been compiled by Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister (PMEAC).

Highlights:

• Investments in R&D are key inputs in economic growth. The impact of this is proven on productivity, exports, employment and capital formation.
• India’s investment in R&D is a fraction of India’s GDP. It has remained constant at around 0.6% to 0.7% of India’s GDP.
• This is below the expenditure of countries like the US (2.8), China (2.1), Israel (4.3) and Korea (4.2). Government expenditure, almost entirely the Central Government, is the driving force of R&D in India which is in contrast to the advanced countries where private sector is the dominant and driving force of R&D spend.
• The report is to address the data gaps in compiling R&D data so that up to date data on R&D is available in order to reflect India’s true rank globally.
• To examine expenditure trends in various sector and their short coming.
• To lay down the road map for achieving the desire target of R&D spend by the year 2022.

Recommendations:

• There is a need for greater participation of State Governments and private sector in overall R&D spending in India especially in application-oriented research and technology development.
• The growth in R&D expenditure should be commensurate with the growth of GDP and should reach at least two percent of GDP by 2022.