Can ANRF pull off the impossible for India?

Anusandhan National Research Foundation is expected to reorient India's innovation goals but funding issues, old mindsets remain a drag

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SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH and innovation is finally finding a place, or appears to figure in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s list of priorities, after the first two terms of his Bharatiya Janata Party (bjp) government were wasted in pandering to irrational beliefs and propagating religious myths that were even foisted on the prestigious Indian Science Congress. The Congress, an annual event held every year since 1914 that draws globally renowned scientists to its conclave, was scrapped this year by the government, which has done little to hide its disdain for scientists and their spirit of rational inquiry and discovery. It is with curiosity and hope, therefore, that the government’s attempts to restructure research goals since late last year have been watched by the community and by anyone with a keen interest in pushing the boundaries of scientific inquiry and innovation. As anyone with a passing interest in this field knows, research has become ossified in India’s vast network of public research laboratories and was desperately in need of a new direction to inject a sense dynamism into it.

In August 2023, the government notified its most ambitious attempt at reforming the scientific research framework by establishing the Anusandhan National Research Foundation (anrf) through an Act of Parliament. It repealed the Science and Engineering Research Board Act of 2008 and simultaneously dissolved the Science and Engineering Research Board that was set up under it. The idea was to recast the research landscape by outlining strategic directions and encouraging collaboration between industry, academia and government departments. It was a welcome move except for the big omissions; funding for one. anrf comes with a promise of generous support, but the bulk of the R50,000 crore budgeted for 2023-28, that is, R36,000 crore, has to be raised from private sources, primarily industry and philanthropists.