Ease of Doing Science in India

Varun Aggarwal, Harleen Kaur, Kaustubh Misra and Anjana Sheshadri (2023), Ease of Doing Science Index 2023, Measuring performance of top Indian research institutions, FAST India Report

At the Foundation for Advancing Science and Technology (FAST India), we conducted a primary survey with Science practitioners in 10 Indian institutes to understand their perceptions about the ease of doing science within the ecosystem.

Our study had five areas of investigation, viz., the ease of raising money, the ease of utilising the money, to ease of collaboration and commercialisation,the and availability of institutional resources. Other than getting ratings/measures on these parameters, the survey asked several diagnostic questions to understand why certain things are easy or hard for scientists to do. These provide a rank-ordered list for government, policymakers, and institutions, to focus their energy on problem areas and fix issues.

Key Findings:

 EoDS parameters score on a scale of 5

• Ease of utilising funds is rated lowest, with 58% of scientists rating it below average. Ease of fundraising and commercialisation are the next two problem areas with 45-49% rating them below average. Overall, only 6% of respondents on average rate any parameter as ‘Very Good’ for Indian EoDS. This is concerning since the ability to utilise funds for human resources, equipment and material, etc. is a hygiene factor in comfortably doing cutting-edge research.  On the other hand, it is a positive signal that 52% of scientists find institutional support as good or very good. 
• Ease of commercialisation, rated below average by 49% of the respondents, is critical to get the socio-economic benefits of research. Given the size of India’s industry and startup ecosystem, there exists an opportunity to improve EoDS from both fundraising and commercialisation perspectives.
• A large amount of scientific research is funded by government agencies. 87% of respondents reported receiving some government funding for their research, with 62% of the respondents receiving more than half of their research funding from various government agencies. Amongst EoDS survey respondents, the most common government funding agency for science research is Department of Science and Technology (DST) or Science and Engineering Research Board (SERB), a statutory body under the DST; followed by the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) and Department of Biotechnology (DBT) and Defence Research & Development Organisation (DRDO). Industry funding only counted as 7.3% of total funding obtained by the respondents. 
• Early career researchers (ECRs) find utilising funds and getting institutional support much harder than experienced researchers. ECRs generally find doing most things related to science research harder than experienced researchers. They really struggle with utilising funds (gap of 16 points) and institutional support (gap of 25 points), as compared to experienced researchers. A plausible explanation could be that scientists better learn the processes and people dynamics with experience. Lack of training and lack of documentation of processes for ECRs could also contribute to this.  
• Generally, factors associated with granting agencies were rated more difficult as compared to factors associated with academic institutes. Within ease of obtaining funds, the respondents were generally satisfied with the support provided by their institution for obtaining funds. However, the factors that are under the control of funding agencies, such as timeline for processing grants, availability of big money to conduct research, objectiveness of selection criteria, were rated below average. Similarly, for ease of utilisation of funds, funding for international travel as well as availability of equipment and resources were rated as lowest, while receiving grants on time and approvals for disbursement were rated close to average. Within ease of commercialisation, institutional assistance they received in identifying and applying for registration of intellectual property arising out of research was the easiest for respondents, whereas finding support to obtain funding from industry for their research was rated as the lowest ease aspect of commercialisation. This indicates that while respondents faced problems while negotiating and receiving grants from funding agencies, they believe that the general availability of institutional support at the top research institutions of India is good. 

The report can be accessed here.