'Ease of doing research' mechanism soon, Centre says after ANRF board meeting

New Delhi: The Centre will soon come up with an “ease of doing research” mechanism to help scientists focus on the R&D rather than spending hours on administrative procedures, officials said here after the first meeting of the Anusandhan National Research Foundation (ANRF) governing board headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The ANRF would also encourage retired scientists to run research programmes at lower rank universities with generous funding support, the officials said.

Around 150-200 universities would be supported for getting linked to an IIT or IISER or a national laboratory in a hub and spoke model.

At the maiden board meeting, the Prime Minister stressed on the need to identify and remove obstacles in the research ecosystem of the country.

He underscored the need for upgradation and standardisation of institutions, and developing a dashboard where information related to research and development happening in the country could be tracked.

The foundation was created last year to improve the research ecosystem in Indian universities with support from the private sector.

The agency will have a corpus of Rs 50,000 crore over five years, out of which Rs 14,000 crore will come from the government. The private sector will provide the rest through CSR or co-investment or donations.

“For better transparency and governance, we will come out with an ease of doing research mechanism. This will simplify the procedures and bring flexibility in funding. There will be both recurring and non-recurring funds,” said an official. The emoluments for manpower in ANRF projects will also be raised.

Complicated procedures and red-tapes remain a problem for research in India for decades. The complications have turned even more acute in the last couple of years with the Union Finance Ministry introducing a new 'zero balance financing' mechanism for research grants.

Many senior scientists noted that the new system came with a set of crippling procedures because of which funds didn’t come on time and disappeared at the end of the year (zero balance) requiring more paperwork for restoration.

“We are aware of the problems associated with zero balance funding. The issue has been flagged,” said another official.

On promotion of research in the universities, he said that currently less than one per cent of nearly 40,000 higher education institutions were engaged in research – a situation that the ANRF seeks to change.

India has only 15 researchers per 100,000 population, compared to 111 in China and 423 in the US. Only 15.8 per cent of India's research papers appear in the top 10 journals, compared with 27.6 per cent of Chinese papers and 36.2 per cent of US papers.

The ANRF will promote mission-mode programmes on EV-mobility, advanced materials, photonics, sustainable agriculture, smart infrastructure and healthcare. The priority is to launch the programmes on EV-mobility and materials.

Officials said the foundation would also support setting up translational research centres and ANRF centres of Excellence.