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Research funding, institutions and awards

How Indian research is paid for and organised: research spending, the national research foundation and funds for innovation, science institutions and their reform, awards, and the careers of scientists. It serves GS3 answers on science policy.

Showing 1 of 5 articles, those that changed from 1 to 31 July 2026.Show all

India's research spending

Prelims and Mains

India's research spending is its gross expenditure on research and development (GERD), paid by government and by private industry.

For the first time the larger half of India's research bill is paid by private industry rather than by government.
The change is in who pays, not in how much, because the total remains small set against the countries India measures itself by.

0.84%India's gross expenditure on research and development (GERD) as a share of gross domestic product, up from 0.64% in 2020-21

2.58% and 3.45%the same share for China and the United States

354researchers per million people in India

From the Department of Science and Technology's R&D Statistics 2025-26, reported in The Hindu, 6 August 2026

What changed

29 Jul 2026
- Gross expenditure on research and development reached 0.84 per cent of GDP in 2023 to 24, up from 0.66 per cent in 2019 to 20.
- The private sector's share rose to 51.8 per cent, overtaking government for the first time.
- India ranked 38th on the Global Innovation Index in 2025, from 46th in 2021.
PIB, 29 Jul 2026: PARLIAMENT QUESTION: FUND DISBURSED/UTILIZED IN ANRF (opens in a new tab) · PIB, 29 Jul 2026: PARLIAMENT QUESTION: RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT EXPENDITURE (opens in a new tab)

Show history (1 other update)

6 Aug 2026
- Industry now employs more core researchers than the public sector, and part of the rise may be better measurement under new disclosure norms rather than new money.
- Close to 80 per cent of ANRF money goes to the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs).
- Public research money is spread across agencies that cannot see what the others fund.
- NITI Aayog proposes a Unified Project Management System to plan, fund and monitor public research in one place.
- Without a persistent identifier and standard metadata on every grant, money still cannot be traced to results.
The Hindu, 6 Aug 2026: Quantum shift: on private industry and national research spending (opens in a new tab) · The Hindu, 27 Aug 2026: Why India's research ecosystem needs a map of where the money really goes (opens in a new tab)