DATA STORY : Research and Development in India

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The Indian Research and Development (R&D) System can be grouped by way of a variety of performers and funding sources. The performers include the national laboratories, universities, in-house R&D laboratories and non-profit organisations. The funding sources include the Central Government, State Governments and the industry. In the Central Government, scientific research is carried out under both these groups.

India’s gross expenditure in R&D has tripled between 2008 & 2018 driven mainly by Govt sector and scientific publications have risen placing the country internationally among the top few, as per the R&D Statistics and Indicators 2019-20 based on the national S&T survey 2018 brought out by the National Science and Technology Management Information (NSTMIS), Department of Science and Technology (DST).

The national expenditure on R&D has increased from Rs. 95,452.44 crore in 2015–16 to Rs. 1,13,825.03 crore in 2017–18. National R&D expenditure as percentage of GDP was 0.7% during 2017–18, which has consistently remained the same since 2012–13. Though, in absolute terms, the R&D expenditure has shown a consistent rising trend over the years. A similar rising trend is also being observed in the case of GDP as well. Thus, it would be interesting to examine and compare the trend in annual growth rate of both R&D expenditure and GDP together.

India has 255 researchers per million population as compared to 8,342 in Israel 7,899 in Denmark; 7,597 in Sweden; 7,498 in Korea; 6,722 in Finland; 6,636 in Singapore; 6,489 in Norway and 5,304 in Japan. However, the total numbers of researchers in India are 3.42 lakh as compared to 17.40 lakh in China, 13.71 lakh in USA, 6.76 lakh in Japan, 4.13 lakh in Germany and 3.83 lakh in Korea.

This data story aims to highlight statistics about R&D expenditure.