A lifeline for Indian science

Individual donors are gradually stepping up to support science in India, which could help fill a significant void in funding cutting-edge research

In 2009, Ramaswamy Subramanian, a leading researcher in the US, took up the challenge of setting up the Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine (inStem) at the highly regarded National Centre for Biological Sciences (NCBS) in Bengaluru. Rams, as he is called, also set up C-CAMP as an incubator to connect clinical research and industry.

His 10-year stint turned out to be a mixed bag. The institute achieved all that a great scientific institution would be proud of, such as state-of-the-art infrastructure and the presence of globally renowned scientists like Kouichi Hasegawa from Kyoto University. C-CAMP became self-sustaining with the active participation of nearly 50 firms each year in collaborative research at the centre.

However, the original purpose of identifying five or six complex research problems that would significantly move the needle in life sciences did not materialise. Dr Subramanian says he himself worked on several cutting-edge research projects during his time at inStem, but delays in securing the promised research grants invariably meant that he found himself being surpassed by other global researchers.

The reasons are critical to understand, especially since they continue to hinder Indian research from making dramatic strides.

The Indian government is in a fierce rush to set up new IITs and ISERs for science and technology. Given its large population, India offers rich and diverse data sets for global researchers to explore new ground in emerging markets. Many Indian and global scientists are keen to conduct pioneering research in these labs. So, what’s the gap?

Outcome vs output: This is an eternal problem where the central focus is on publishing arcane academic papers in prestigious journals, rather than on discovering real-world clinical applications for which the centre was originally set up. Over time, this original mandate was diluted.

Research grants only on paper: The government would allocate research budgets, but the funds would either not be disbursed or would experience considerable delays. It’s not that the departmental secretaries were unaware; they were simply helpless. They were constrained by a relic of the Raj: Financial advisors, usually at the level of an undersecretary, who held sway over money matters and reported to the expenditure secretary in the finance ministry. Consequently, departmental secretaries seldom had the power to get the funds disbursed.

While the formidable Maharaj Kishan Bhan was the secretary at the Department of Biotechnology (DBT), he would simply not tolerate any delays and take it upon himself to sanction funds or push the expenditure secretary to do so. None of his successors were quite in that same mould.

Without research grants coming through on time, the actual work remained shrouded in uncertainty. And over time, any ambitious research effort would run out of steam because of bureaucratic red tape and long delays in importing reagents and expensive instruments.

The risks of raising external funding: It wasn’t as if private donors were unwilling to contribute. On occasion, when private donors made a significant contribution to the research budget, the same financial advisors in the bureaucracy would reduce the share of the government’s contribution. Or they would demand accountability for how the money was spent, even the portion that came from the private sector.

That wasn’t all. Family foundations that came forward to support research wanted updates on progress rather than details on how the money was being spent. But the scientists themselves were reluctant to be accountable for outcomes. They would simply furnish the same utilisation certificate that they were used to sharing with the bureaucracy.

This is an endemic issue. Successive governments have simply been out of sync with the idea of how to build and consistently sustain a culture of research. The result: India spends a minuscule 0.6 per cent of its gross domestic product on research, compared to the global average of 1.8 per cent.

The sooner research institutions find a way to become self-sustaining and cut the umbilical cord with the government, the better it will be for pursuing their own research priorities.

A silver lining is now visible. A growing pool of philanthropic capital, both in India and in the Indian diaspora, is gradually coming into play. Dr Subramanian is himself part of one such pioneering effort: Ignite Life Science Foundation, a Section 8 company, set up by leading scientists that matches donors with focussed interests to teams of researchers willing to work on specific projects. More such entities are likely to fill the void that exists in funding Indian science.

Long-standing philanthropists like Nadir Godrej, Kiran Mazumdar Shaw, Smita Crishna, G V Prasad, Sunil Handa, Kris Gopalakrishnan, Nandan and Rohini Nilekani and many others are recognising the need to fund specific challenges that Indian science can address. The obvious advantage is that it comes without any institutional baggage. Ignite identifies the challenges that donors are happy to fund and then matches them with a team of renowned scientists from various institutions.

Whether this pool of capital expands remains to be seen. For now, the younger crop of tech mavens in India don’t seem inclined to invest their wealth in scientific research. Tapping new gen entrepreneurs in the Indian diaspora could yield results, especially if these donors provide grants outside India to Indian scientists to attend more conferences and work in global centres around the world.

The writer is co-founder at Founding Fuel