NEW DELHI: After decades of sustained efforts in the science and technology sector, India has significantly improved its position in the Global Innovation Index having obtained 40th position in 2022 from 81st in 2014. Not only this, but India also improved its position globally in ‘scholarly outputs’ in the last decade.
Sharing all this, Union Minister for Science and Technology (Independent Charge) Dr Jitendra Singh informed the Parliament that country’s Research Performance (RPs) in science and technology has also significantly improved in the past few years making it visible through a large amount of scientific knowledge in terms of research publications, development of technologies and innovations.
Quoting the Science & Engineering Indicators 2022 report of NSF (National Science Foundation), Dr Singh said: “ India’s position globally in scientific publications improved from 7th position in 2010 to 3rd position in 2020”. He further said that country’s scholarly outputs in science and technology sector have also increased from 60,555 papers in 2010 to 1, 49,213 papers in 2020.
Outlining the government’s several steps taken up to boost the science and Technology sector, Dr Singh said that the government has started working for improving the ease of doing business in the Science and Technology and Innovation (STI) activities also with an aim to take the country on the top of the position.
“The government is creating more and more avenues for collaborative STRI funding through portfolio-based funding mechanisms such as Public-Private Partnership and other innovative hybrid funding mechanisms,” he said. The most notable step taken by the government is allowing the corporate sector to make R&D (Research& Development) investments under the provision of the Corporate Responsibility Fund(CSR).