Govt, industry must work togesther to promote R&D: Watal

Government and industry must synergise their efforts to promote R&D and innovation in the country, Principal Adviser to Niti Aayog Ratan P Watal said today.

The culture of spending on research and development is growing in India and we are seeing the results in the form of improvements in rankings such as the Global Innovation Rank (GII), Watal said at a CII event on release of the GII report.

India has improved its ranks on the Global Innovation Index by three places to 57th in 2018 from 60th position last year, according to the 'Global Innovation Index 2018, Energizing the World with Innovation' report.

India ranked well in several important innovation inputs, including graduates in science and engineering, expenditures of major R&D-intensive global companies, and capital formation, the report said.

Switzerland, the Netherlands, Sweden, the UK, Singapore, the US, Finland and Denmark lead the 2018 rankings in GII.

Among the indicators of innovation outputs, India ranked first in the world in ICT services exports, whereas labour productivity growth, where it is fourth globally.

According to report, India ranked second among middle-income economies (after China) in the indicators that capture the quality of the innovation inputs and outputs.

"This year, its rankings are edging slightly closer to those of China, testifying the important efforts that the country is making in boosting innovation," the report said.

It also pointed out that in particular, India ranked well in the quality of its scientific publication and local universities, because of higher scores for the Indian Institute of Science Bangalore and the Indian Institute of Technology.

The GII indicators are grouped into innovation inputs and outputs.

Innovation inputs capture the efforts made by the country to boost innovation.

Innovation outputs measure the results of these efforts in terms of scientific publications, patents, trademarks, production, exports and other outputs.

As per the report, over the past three years, India has improved its ranking in innovation outputs, reaching the 57th position this year, up from the 58th in 2017 and the 59th in 2016.

India's innovation inputs also improved, ranking 63rd up from 66th and 72nd positions in the past two years.