Need to devote more resources to R&D in India: Ansari

Vice-President Hamid Ansari today rued the low levels of spending on research and development (R&D) in the country, saying it was preventing India from matching up to global standards.
"We spend only 1 per cent of our gross domestic product (GDP) on R&D.
"We need to raise that spending to 2 per cent of GDP just to match other developed and emerging economies," Ansari said.
"India's innovation system ranking varies between 50 and 60 globally. For a country of our size and population, our ownership of intellectual assets also needs to show an increase - from a little more than 1,900 patents filed by Indians and sealed in 2007 to (a target of) about 20,000 patents per year by 2020," Ansari said.

He was addressing the gathering at the National Awards Presentation Ceremony for the 3rd National-level Exhibition and Project Competitions, 2013.
The contest was a part of the 'Innovation in Science Pursuit for Inspired Research (INSPIRE)' programme organised by the Department of Science and Technology.
Stressing that science and technology will be critical for the future, he said that many challenges still remained which, "would require investing adequately in knowledge systems, infrastructure and trained human resources related to scientific research and technological development, not only by the government but to an equal degree by the private corporate sector."
Talking about the objective of the INSPIRE programme, Ansari said it aimed at attracting talent to the study of science at an early age to help build the required human resource pool for strengthening and expanding the research and development base in the country.