India Bets Big on Research and Innovation

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Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday launched a ₹1 trillion ($11.26 billion) Research, Development and Innovation (RDI) Scheme at the Emerging Science, Technology and Innovation Conclave (ESTIC) 2025 in New Delhi, pitching it as risk capital to crowd in private R&D and build a modern “ease of doing research” ecosystem.

The Prime Minister’s Office and the Press Information Bureau said the fund is designed to strengthen a private-sector-led research model and accelerate lab-to-market translation.

ESTIC is being held from 3–5 November at Bharat Mandapam with more than 3,000 people from academia, research institutions, industry, government and several Nobel laureates expected to participate, according to the organizers.

Deliberations cover 11 themes ranging from AI and quantum to biomanufacturing, advanced materials, space, electronics and semiconductors.

Modi framed the new scheme as part of a broader shift: India’s R&D spend has doubled over the last decade; patent registrations have risen 17-fold; and the country now hosts the world’s third-largest startup ecosystem with more than 6,000 deep-tech firms in areas like clean energy and advanced materials.

While that doubling is visible in official GERD data, India’s R&D intensity has remained in the 0.6–0.7% of GDP range, a point policy makers acknowledge as they talk up reforms in procurement, finance and regulation to shorten the journey from prototype to deployment.

Two education-to-research pipeline moves stood out. First, Atal Tinkering Labs will scale from roughly 10,000 today to 25,000 new labs to seed curiosity and hands-on experimentation among students.

Second, the government will award 10,000 new Prime Minister’s Research Fellowships over five years, a commitment that builds on the Budget 2025 announcement and aligns with PMRF 2.0.

He also said India will host a Global AI Summit in February and pushed the idea of an ethical, human-centric AI governance framework, syncing with the IndiaAI Mission.

The science news backdrop helped. On 2 November, ISRO launched CMS-03, better known as GSAT-7R, aboard the LVM3-M5 “Bahubali” from Sriharikota.

At 4,410 kg, it is India’s heaviest communications satellite, built to replace GSAT-7 and expand the Indian Navy’s secure, multiband coverage and maritime domain awareness across the Indian Ocean Region. The launch underscored the “science meets scale” message the government tried to project at ESTIC.

Under the hood, the new RDI fund is meant to fix a structural weakness: India’s GERD is largely government-driven and corporate R&D has lagged peers as a share of GDP. Prior consultations on “ease of doing R&D” at IITs and think tanks this year kept returning to the same frictions of procurement cycles, IP ownership in public-private projects, and low risk appetite for breakthrough bets.

A blended pool that can underwrite high-risk, high-impact projects is intended to move the needle on private participation while giving universities and national labs clearer paths to co-development with industry.

The government also flagged the Anusandhan Research Foundation to anchor university-led innovation and coordinate across departments.

What changes in practice depends on execution. The promise to simplify financial rules and procurement, make standards predictable, and allow faster pilot-to-scale transitions will need tight implementation guidance for ministries and PSUs that fund large slices of Indian R&D.

The focus on 11 themes gives the private sector a sense of priority lanes; linking those lanes to time-bound challenge grants, milestone-based disbursements, and open IP pools for SMEs will be crucial if the fund is to unlock additional corporate rupees rather than just substitute for them.

On metrics, the “doubling” headline is right over a decade, but sustaining momentum requires broader participation from industry and better R&D-to-GDP intensity. Parliament replies this year show GERD more than doubled between 2010–11 and 2020–21 in nominal rupees, even as intensity flat-lined near 0.7%—a gap the RDI scheme explicitly aims to close by shifting the centre of gravity toward private labs and consortia.

For startups and deep-tech founders, the signals are aligned: a large pool of risk capital, challenge calls in priority tech, and an export-minded stance in areas like semiconductors, AI, and advanced materials. For universities, the near-term gains include more PMRF slots, stronger lab networks via Atal Tinkering and Anusandhan, and—if procurement reforms land—less friction in buying equipment and spinning out IP. For the armed forces and space, the GSAT-7R milestone is a reminder that downstream users are watching the upstream pipeline closely; the value of the scheme will be judged by how quickly dual-use innovations cross from grant to field.

India will try to use the Global AI Summit in early 2026 to keep the governance conversation practical, focusing on safety, inclusion, and market access, rather than theoretical reports said. If the RDI scheme seeds credible public-private projects in the next 12–18 months, New Delhi will have case studies on stage, not just aspirations.