Why India can’t produce Nobel Laureates
Sun, 04 Aug 2024
Why India can’t produce Nobel Laureates
India’s population is 1.5 billion or 150 crores. China is roughly the same, while the USA trails way behind with just under a fifth, with 340 million or 34 crores.
The United States with 400 has the highest number of Nobel laureates in the world, of which 23 were awarded for Peace while 14 won for Literature, and 71 for Economics. The United Kingdom follows with 135, Germany with 109, France with 70 and so on.
India produced 5 Nobel Laureates among its citizens. The 1st being RabindranathTagore in 1913, Sir C.V Raman in 1930, Mother Teresa in 1979, Amartya Sen in 1998 and Kailash Satyarthi in 2014. The first was for Literature, while two were for Peace, one was for Economics. Only Raman was awarded the Nobel for Physics.
Four others of Indian origin received the Nobel of which three were for discoveries in science. But these researchers did their research in institutions located in the USA. If they were in India it is highly unlikely that they would have accomplished what they did.
While 300 Nobel prizes in Science were awarded to researchers in the USA over a span of 123 years, India could manage just 1. Is there a serious flaw here? Do we care enough to win these prestigious awards? Do they matter to a country with one of the oldest civilizations? Or is it that we Indians are just not smart or good enough in technical knowledge and innovation to impress the world.
How does America do it?
“Funding for basic research, which is defined as study for the aim of improving scientific theories or understanding of subjects, is at the heart of America's wins”, David Baltimore, co-winner of the 1975 Nobel Prize in medicine, told the press.
“It's also the strength of our research institutes and universities that goes back to the founding of Harvard so many centuries ago, and their continued support with no breaks," added Baltimore, now president emeritus and distinguished professor of biology at Caltech. American emphasis on basic research traces back to the aftermath of World War II and the creation of the National Science Foundation in 1950, which continues to coordinate federal funding to universities today.
Philanthropy and private endowments also play an ever-growing role in financing. While China is catching up to the US in terms of total research funding ($668 billion versus $806 billion as per 2021 figures), it has challenges linked to academic freedom and abilities to attract top talent.
The US has built a phenomenal culture of welcoming researchers. US universities have a long history of rewarding bright young researchers with their own labs. In places like Europe and in Japan, there would be academically accomplished groups led by a very senior professor and it wasn't until that person retired that a younger person stepped in, and by that time they don't necessarily have their best ideas anymore. For example, Harvard neurobiologist Catherine Dulac, who won the 2021 Breakthrough Prize for her work on parental instinct, decided against returning to France in her twenties for this very reason. India could be faulted for the same reasons, as we are hierarchical and bureaucratic, and somewhat orthodox in acknowledging age, experience and even gender.
Just as rich countries with strong sports infrastructure dominate international competitions like the Olympics, being the world's number one economy makes the United States a scientific powerhouse.
India boasts of being the 5th largest economy soon to stand at the podium when we reach the third spot. But anyone can see that without research and innovation, we will never retain our spot, nor be able to climb any further.
What is it that we do so poorly, that we cannot discover, innovate and lead?
Funding is undoubtedly one of the principal causes. Private funding is woefully minimal, and public funding by the government is handicapped by welfare priorities, just as much as by GDP.
Shortage of skilled researchers stares at our faces. Skilling has never been a part of our learning mindset. Right from school and through higher education the target has always been about scoring the highest rank in an entrance exam, so as to join the gamble in 1% of elite high paying jobs in engineering or medicine. Engineers and Doctors do not go on to become researchers.
India is way behind in filing patents. In 2023 we filed 83,000 patents to China’s 1.6 million or 1,600,000 (about 20 times).
Wrong focus on quantity of research rather than on quality. The bulk of research we do in the public realm (defending a doctoral thesis), is mostly of mediocre quality, in that the subject matter is either non critical and of little use in innovative manufacturing, or flicked off from some obscure paper in some part of the world. The focus is on getting a Ph.D.
No doubt the goal was that at the outset, but the issue may have to do with the quality and competence of the research guide itself. Taking on a difficult and challenging subject makes the guide’s work that much harder. Academia in India barring the few premier elite institutions, are generally a ‘ cushioned retirement’ kind of parking spot. The issue is again not that simple because the institution would lack high tech modern equipment, that would foreclose the idea of taking on any subject that the inhouse laboratory cannot support.
But it's also the mind set. Research in India is done for the sake of getting a doctoral degree, not for seeking new knowledge. Guides need to chase funds, compete for it with other guides. Students too need to align with their guides so as to sustain their funding. The vicious cycle does not foster a mindset for seeking knowledge or pioneering discoveries. Funding drives research activities globally, but the bulk of it, unlike in India, comes from private sources, and the innate needs of the market drives the subjects towards better products or services and of course larger profits. Thus innovation is hardwired and embedded in the funding template.
Let's look at problems of Funding
India spends only 0.64% of its GDP on research and development, making it difficult for Indian researchers to compete with their peers around the world. The global average is around 2.2%. India falls behind major developed and emerging economies such as China (2.4%), Germany (3.1%), South Korea (4.8%) and the United States (3.5%).
Talent Pool
India has long been known for its talent in the fields of science and technology. However, despite having a pool of talented researchers and engineers, the country is lagging behind in research and development. The situation is even more concerning when compared to other emerging economies like Brazil, and Russia.
China’s investment in research and development was four times higher than that of India. The figures are likely to be much higher as government support is prevalent in every sector of industry and defence, and hidden behind a plethora of opaque layers.
There are over 500 million citations of research papers published by the USA, to 150 million for China to 38 million citations for India. We no doubt lead many other nations in sheer numbers, but lag behind them in research impact. This is due to the poor quality of the material produced.
Credibility of data cited in our papers are not considered top notch. Some fudging and ‘adjustments’ in our work is generally considered OK.
India has the third-largest scientific and technical manpower in the world, with over 2 million scientists and engineers. However, many of them lack adequate training and resources to conduct high-quality research. According to a 2020 report by the National Science and Technology Management Information System, India has around 167 researchers per million population, compared to 8,358 in South Korea, 4,831 in China, and 4,398 in the US.
Why do schools and colleges not throw up researchers?
Out of the approximately 40,000 higher education institutions in India, less than 1% actively participate in high-quality research, spanning both scientific and social science research.
This implies that 99% of HEIs are not contributing to the country's high-quality knowledge creation.
So it is obvious where our technically skilled manpower is aiming - BE, MBBS, PGDCA, BCA, MCA, etc, or an assortment of technical courses meant for a low or medium skilled job. It's another matter that many of them eventually are delivering Pizzas. However none will or want to enter the clean rooms of quiet air conditioned laboratories, where researchers might be sitting for years plodding away at reams of obscure data, or staring into a screen or a scope.
India's education system does not adequately prepare students for research and development careers. Schools need to start identifying bright minds at a young age, and nurture them towards project based learning (PBL) . Encouraging them to take on challenging tasks in projects, helps them develop tangential, divergent thinking and fosters innovative ideas to find solutions. Failures should be encouraged as a natural process of learning and growth. The process of R&D is built upon the bedrock of countless failures. Creativity thrives in such fertile minds.
The National Research Foundation (NRF)
India in 2023-2034 had set aside Rs 2,000 crore out of the annual budget, a mere 0.5%, for the National Research Foundation (NRF), (similar to the American NSF), created to fund, coordinate, and promote research in the country. Budget 2024-25 once again allocated only ₹2,000 crore to NRF, falling embarrassingly short of the promised ₹50,000 crore promised by the PM. A sizable increase here is crucial if India wants to achieve its goal of becoming a $5 trillion economy by 2027-28, the third largest in the world.
Let's look at Innovation. Why do we have to innovate?
Kodak was a globally renowned company and a household name in the world of photography. It was founded in 1888 by George Eastman as 'The Eastman Kodak Company'. In 2012 the company filed for bankruptcy. It met with unsustainable headwinds in the market and failed cataclysmically. The company continued to focus on film cameras even as digital cameras became more popular, failing to innovate and adapt to change. The company's downfall serves as a warning of the risks of neglecting innovation, even for the most powerful companies.
Innovation and technical progress are prerequisites for economic growth. The central concept of growth is that previous innovations become obsolete as new innovations emerge. So we cannot stop innovation and as a consequence need to enlarge research activities and amplify innovation techniques to create impact.
Another company which became complacent was ‘Nokia’. Many years back, Nokia ignored the rise of smartphones, and today is hard pressed to to be seen in the booming smartphone market.
These organisations, once at the pinnacle of their industries, serve as stark reminders of the perils of complacency and lack of innovation, and the critical need for vigilance against the invisible fault lines within.
What might be India’s problems with Innovation?
JRD Tata, the doyen of the Tata group and one of India’s most consequential, philanthropic and imaginative leaders once said, “I've always taken the view that one of the weaknesses of our country is that we're satisfied with the second or third best in everything. The basic attitude of us Indians is ‘chalega’, ‘ayega’, ‘dekhega’, (will work, will come, will see). Therefore almost everything that we do, we do it poorly”.
JRD did hit the nail right on its head.
For decades, we took pride in barely crossing the line, resulting in mediocrity. Winning no doubt is a consequence of hard work and patience, but it also has to be an aspiration. JRD said “If we don't aim at perfection, how would we achieve excellence?” This mind set of aligning our actions with perfection has to start young. A benchmark of excellence in whatever we do should be an aspirational goal right from school. This is not the same as scoring multiple A+, which is only a consequence of rote learning. Unfortunately we in India tend to confuse this with excellence. Rarely have rank holders gone on to win Nobel prizes.
Embracing ‘Jugaad’.
Another typically Indian misconception is equating ‘jugaad’ with brilliance or excellence. “Jugaad” roughly translates as a ‘hack’ or a ‘fix’. Using one’s skill or imagination, using waste materials or cheap basic goods to find an easy solution to a problem.
We normally look up to such innovative fixers as purveyors of brilliance and insightful knowledge. Simple work-arounds, solutions that bend the rules, or resources that can be used in such a way is considered creative. So to make existing things work and create new things with meagre resources is erroneously confused with dogged, cutting edge researchers, who also innovate to find solutions but do it out of deep rooted scientific concepts and understanding.
We are proud of our ‘juggadists’ and seem to be happy rewarding them, forgetting that it didn’t take twenty years or more of focussed study on a pioneering frontier area in science to recycle a used two wheeler into a makeshift tractor, or plastic water bottles for drip irrigation, or a motorcycle battery to charge a cellphone. No doubt these fixes emanated from brilliant minds and would have saved valuable resources, but these are not the benchmarks for excellence.
It takes a generational shift to reorient our flawed mindsets, but it needs to be done and it has to start young and at schools. It is here that we set benchmarks, it is here that we define the meaning of perseverance and deep understanding of the scientific concepts that we eventually will grapple with and challenge or even overturn as cutting edge researchers trying to reach the stars.
It is from this fertile innovative stream of excellence that a Nobel laureate might be born. Sadly our education system is so terribly ‘broken’ that all we are able to foster in a mad scramble is to hit ranks in entrance tests. An engineering or medical seat in a government college is par for the course. If it is in a handful of elite colleges then that is a birdie ( one golf stroke under the par score). If it is a top ranked IIT it is an Eagle ( 2 under par). If it also eventually gets you a ‘phoren’ job in green dollars, then it might be termed as a double eagle, or even ‘a hole in one' ( a single shot to get the ball into the hole in golf - a rarity).
This is the laurel we seek. If we can also find an equally accomplished spouse then that is it. This is the summit. This is the pinnacle of aspiration. Not sitting perpetually at a beach or under a tree to ask “What is gravity?” or, “Is a cell conscious?”, or “How can a particle be entangled with each other across time and space?”
We in India need a radical change in the way we approach learning. Fixing the broken education system is not going to happen suddenly, but it should, with time. Alternate systems of learning are already throwing up deep lateral thinkers. More of these will undoubtedly one day get us back into the Nobel shortlist.
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Summing up
Resuscitate the suffocating research ecosystem.The government's effort to impose fiscal discipline on states and educational institutions has suffocated the research ecosystem at institutions like IISc, IITs and IISERs.
Help create better infrastructure.There are only a few well equipped laboratories and research facilities in the country, which limits the ability of researchers to carry out advanced research.
Foster better collaboration between academia and industry,encouraging innovation and the commercialisation of research. Re-focus on applied research, which is critical for the development of new products and technologies.
Stem the brain drain. Many of India's brightest minds emigrate to other countries for better opportunities, resulting in a brain drain that weakens the country's research and development capabilities.
Unshackle bureaucratic hurdles (red tape) that researchers must navigate to obtain funding and carry out projects. Ease the challenges in procuring laboratory equipment.
Create an enabling regulatory environment ensuring a level playing field for all players.
Encourage public-private partnerships (PPPs). Airports, ports, highways, power plants etc are now adapting this model.
Encourage foreign direct investment (FDI) by more liberalisation and simplification of procedures.
Develop skills to fill the yawning gap. Encourage alternate education systems to foster divergent thinking.
Re-orient children’s aspirational goals. Define excellence with doable benchmarks.
There’s no time to lose
India has a lot of catching up to do if we want to become a global leader in innovation and technology, but we need to act quickly. For example Synthetic Biology, Bio-engineering etc are the new age technologies and have a gigantic future. India is nowhere. Big data and Data Science, Robotics, AI and ML are new disciplines. Indian colleges, but for the elite are in slumber. It's the same story in almost any field. We are happy to be back benchers. Aerospace engineering is an old science discipline. Yet ISRO had to start their own dedicated institution to feed itself.
We applaud and are proud of our Moon and Mars missions, but remember we landed there a good 57 years after others did. And we don’t qualify for a prize, leave alone the Nobel. Our vaccine manufacturers are an outlier in an otherwise mediocre field.
Millions of meritorious students proudly own school leaving certificates embedded with high marks. These are even displayed in the press and on posters on the roads. Nobody cares that they rote learned obsolete content. For students aiming to enter research portals, the situation is even worse. After cramming for entrance tests like UGC-NET, GATE, CSIR-NET, etc they obsequiously enter a government funded research institution, fawning over their future - now secure with a retirement pension. The bureaucracy then works to swallow their creativity or innovativeness with precision and regularity.
Divergent thinking or open minds are a culture not practised in our schools. A parent mentioned to me “ My son got up in a science class one day and asked a question “Why is the earth round?” The teacher annoyingly told him “Chi, don’t ask silly questions in class and waste time”.
Questioning minds are muzzled. Tangential thinking is curbed. Thinking out of the box is discouraged. Repeating an answer exactly as in the textbook is considered the pinnacle of brilliance. It doesn’t matter if newer discoveries had made the answer obsolete. Learners are encouraged to subscribe to the status quo and not challenge it. A discovery by definition has to be new and not found in the knowledge domain. This can happen only if we allow young minds to question and challenge the established repository of knowledge.
The establishment of the National Research Foundation (NRF) holds rich promise for rectifying deficiencies in the system. It is imperative for all the stakeholders to collaborate and provide the necessary support to ensure its success in transforming India’s research landscape.
A note of caution might be in order. Just throwing more money into the system may not produce the sought after results. Quoting JRD again “ Money is like manure. It stinks when you pile it. It grows when you spread it”. We need money no doubt, but more than that, we need the right people. “Common people have an appetite for food, uncommon people have an appetite for service”, he said. That's what India needs to find. Uncommon people with an appetite for service.
I believe Nobel laureates can be created. If we had more JRD’s around perhaps we could have been in the list every year. It's never too late to start.
