Kolkata, Jan 3 (IANS) India’s new science, technology and innovation (STI) policy brought out Thursday envisages greater private sector participation in research and innovation, and forging of international alliances and collaborations to meet the national agenda of inclusive growth.
The policy, unveiled by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh at the centenary session of the Indian Science Congress here, seeks to accelerate the pace of discovery, diffusion and delivery of science-led solutions.
India’s demographics have changed significantly over the years, with an overwhelmingly young population that is highly aspirational. New paradigms of innovation have also emerged with globalisation.
The STI policy 2013 seeks to trigger an ecosystem for innovation leveraging partnerships among diverse stakeholders and by encouraging and facilitating enterprises to invest in innovations that are country and context specific.
India has declared 2010-20 as the “Decade of Innovation”.
The STI policy wants to raise the gross expenditure in research and development (R&D) to 2 per cent from the present one per cent of the gross domestic product (GDP) in this decade by encouraging increased private contribution.
The key mechanisms for implementing the policy include promoting establishment of R&D facilities on a PPP (public-private partnership) basis, aligning venture capital and the Inclusion Innovation Fund.
It says R&D in the private sector would be treated at par with public institutions for availing public funds.
The policy also seeks to share co-sharing of intellectual property rights (IPR) between inventors and investors.
And to achieve all this, the Department of Science and Technology will establish a “policy implementation group” and operationalise the proposals within the next two years.
