Context

The Office of the Principal Scientific Adviser to the Government of India (Office of PSA) and the Department of Science and Technology (DST) have jointly initiated a decentralized, bottom-up, and inclusive process for the formulation of a new ‘national Science Technology and Innovation Policy (STIP 2020)’.

About

About S&T Policy

• The fifth S&T policy of India is being formulated at a crucial juncture when India and the world are tackling the COVID-19 pandemic.
• This is only the latest among the many important changes in the past decade that have necessitated formulation of a new outlook and strategy for Science, Technology, and Innovation (STI).
• As the crisis changes the world, the new policy with its decentralized manner of formation will reorient STI in terms of priorities, sectoral focus, the way research is done, and technologies are developed and deployed for larger socio-economic welfare.
• The STI Policy for the new India will also integrate the lessons of COVID-19 including building of an Atmanirbhar Bharat (self- reliance) through ST&I by leveraging our strengths in R&D, Design, S&T workforce and institutions, huge markets, demographic dividend, diversity and data.

The formulation process

• The STIP 2020 formulation process will be six-months long. 
• It is organised into 4 highly interlinked tracks, which will reach out to around 15000 stakeholders for consultation in the policy formulation. 
  • Track I involves an extensive public and expert consultation process through Science Policy Forum- a dedicated platform for soliciting inputs from larger public and expert pool during and after the policy drafting process.
  • Track II comprises experts-driven thematic consultations to feed evidence-informed recommendations into the policy drafting process. Twenty-one (21) focused thematic groups have been constituted for this purpose.
  • Track III involves consultations with Ministries and States
  • Track IV constitutes apex level multi-stakeholder consultation

About the Organisations

• Office of the Principal Scientific Adviser
• India has had a Principal Scientific Adviser (PSA) since 1999.
  • A. P. J. Abdul Kalam was the first PSA from 1999—2001
  • R. Chidambaram succeeded Dr. Kalam and was the PSA from 2001-2018.
  • Professor K. VijayRaghavan succeeded Dr. Chidambaram on April 3, 2018 and is the current PSA.
• The Office aims to help enable and empower all spheres of science and technology so that the execution of programmes is effective for society and the economy.
• Department of Science and Technology (DST)

• Department of Science & Technology (DST) was established in May 1971.
• The organisation aims to promote new areas of Science & Technology and to play the role of a nodal department for organising, coordinating and promoting S&T activities in the country.