'Govt needs to look at incentivising those involved in R&D'

Expressing concern on low spend on R&D, especially by the country's private sector, and the "poor framework" surrounding intellectual property rights, a top official today said Government needs to consider providing incentives to those involved in research and development.
Secretary in the Department of Public Enterprises, Seema Bahuguna, urged public sector units to forge links with top universities for collaboration in R&D to foster innovation.
"We need to have a very good innovation ecosystem in our country with proper linkages among the companies, academia, government," Bahuguna said, while addressing a conference organised by CII here.
"The private sector in India has very little role to play as far as the R&D and technology are concerned. Even in the CPSEs, the majority of the investment has come in areas like defence, energy, aerospace, oceans, and there is very little which is spent on areas like agriculture or medicine or industry. So, I think this is a slightly lopsided thing which we need to address," she said.

The Secretary observed that Indians need to develop a mindset of risk taking, expressing concern over the country not being able to commercialise its capabilities.
"There are PSUs which are filing patents every day but if you ask them how many of those patents are put to actual use by the industry, you will find a very minuscule percentage.
"There is a very poor framework and knowledge about intellectual property rights. We are very weak on this. Perhaps, from the government's side, we need to look at incentives for people doing good work on R&D," Bahuguna said.
She added that there exists a "very rudimentary framework" of collaboration between academia and industry, noting that research should lead to product design and development.