{"id":197882,"date":"2022-07-29T18:42:25","date_gmt":"2022-07-29T13:12:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.forumias.com\/?p=197882"},"modified":"2022-07-29T18:42:25","modified_gmt":"2022-07-29T13:12:25","slug":"a-grand-strategy-for-technology","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/a-grand-strategy-for-technology\/","title":{"rendered":"A grand strategy for technology\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Source:<\/strong> The post is based on an article \u201cA grand strategy for technology\u201d published in the Business Standard on 29th<\/sup> July 2022.<\/p>\n

Syllabus:<\/strong> GS 3 Achievements of Indians in Science & Technology; Indigenization of Technology and Developing New Technology.<\/p>\n

Relevance:<\/strong> Research and Development Spending in India; innovation and Entrepreneurship<\/p>\n

News:<\/strong> In India, Research and Development (R&D) spending has stagnated. However, it has risen steadily in the other major economies.<\/p>\n

As a percentage of gross domestic product (GDP) India\u2019s R&D spending was 0.67% in 2018-19. It is way below the spending made by the major economies. For instance, China has 2%, the European Union has 2%, the US and Japan have 3% and South Korea has 4.5%.<\/p>\n

Further, the Union government accounts for about 45% of the total R&D spending. And, about 60% of the total goes to defence, space, atomic energy and agriculture sector.<\/p>\n

What kind of the R&D Model should be adopted by India?<\/strong><\/p>\n

The R&D model should be on the lines of the US R&D Model which made it the leading force in technology development in the latter half of the 20th century. For example,<\/strong> path-breaking developments in information technology, communication, medicine, space exploration, energy, and a lot more were seen in the US.<\/p>\n

Following are some of the steps US took to develop the R&D:<\/p>\n

It is generally accepted that the R&D growth in US lead by the private sector. Instead, it was provided by the Federal government. This can be understood by the Federal and business R&D spending <\/strong>as a percentage of GDP.<\/p>\n

Its R&D spending reached 1.86% of GDP in the mid-1960s.<\/strong> However, the business R&D spending grew slowly only to 0.86% of GDP.<\/p>\n

The Federal government set up the Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)<\/strong>. It supported several projects like the development of the Internet at a time when even the word \u201cinternet\u201d was not known!<\/p>\n

The Federal government spent on technology projects that had a time horizon of 15-20 years because the private players would seldom invest in long-gestation projects. However, the federal government made efforts to associate the private sector.<\/p>\n

In later period, business R&D grew rapidly from the 1990s onwards often on commercialisation of technologies that were pioneered through the Federal R&D spending<\/strong> rather than on basic or applied research.<\/p>\n

In fact, even now, the US government continues to play a major role in promoting very forward-looking research. For instance, the Federal government has set up an Advanced Research Project Agency-Energy (ARPA-E)<\/strong> and a fund for promoting Energy Frontier Research Centres<\/strong> in Universities.<\/p>\n

US government also supported the commercialization of the technologies obtained after the basic and applied research. For example,<\/strong> the US government provides 20-25% of funding for early-stage technology firms. Further, the venture funds come later when there is sufficient commercialisation to deliver returns in five to seven years through initial public offerings or merger\/acquisition.<\/p>\n

What India should do?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

(1) At present, India is at the stage<\/strong> where the US was in the 1950s and \u201960s. Therefore, the government should do what was done by the US in the \u201950s and \u201960s.<\/p>\n

(2) The Union government should adopt a grand strategy for technology development.<\/strong> The elements should be:<\/p>\n

(a) A five-fold increase in Union government spending on R&D from 0.3% of GDP to 1.5 in 3-5 years\u2019 time<\/p>\n

(b) The Department of science & technology should be reorganized into mission-oriented set-ups.<\/p>\n

(c) The private sector should be better connected with focused mission-oriented research institutions <\/strong>like the Defence Research and Development Organisation, and Space Commission.<\/p>\n

(d) There should be new mission-oriented programmes <\/strong>focussed on emerging challenges like climate change, bio economy and long-term opportunity potentials like nanotechnology, artificial intelligence.<\/p>\n

(e) Capacities of the University\/IIT research institution should be enhanced with a substantial increase in research grants<\/p>\n

(f) Setting a soft target for large corporations on their R&D spending as a proportion of their profits.<\/p>\n

(g) There should be symbiotic linkages between government, business and research institution. Further, the private sector, particularly with a provision for angel investment in high-technology start-ups.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Source: The post is based on an article \u201cA grand strategy for technology\u201d published in the Business Standard on 29th July 2022. Syllabus: GS 3 Achievements of Indians in Science & Technology; Indigenization of Technology and Developing New Technology. Relevance: Research and Development Spending in India; innovation and Entrepreneurship News: In India, Research and Development… Continue reading A grand strategy for technology\u00a0<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10308,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1230,9],"tags":[10503,216],"class_list":["post-197882","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-9-pm-daily-articles","category-public","tag-business-standard","tag-gs-paper-3","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","views":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197882","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10308"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=197882"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197882\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=197882"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=197882"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=197882"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}