Indi struggles to turn science into societal benefits: An Indian solution to the Indian problem of farmers’ exposure to pesticides in a low-income country
Farm workers in India die from exposure to pesticides they spray on their crops every year. In 2018, Praveen Vemula published details2 of a possible solution: a protective gel the farmers can apply to their skin to break down the most toxic substances.
Vemula, a biomaterials scientist at the Institute for Stem Cell Science and Regenerative Medicine in Bengaluru, had big plans for the discovery. He thought he could integrate the gel into fabric and produce a cheap and washable range of protective clothing. He wanted to set-up a spin-off company that could produce the clothes at a large scale, and market and distribute them across the country.
It was an Indian solution to an Indian problem that would be applied to other countries, including Europe and the US.
But there was a problem. There was no support at his institute to make it happen. It had no policy to deal with the transfer of intellectual property, or to decide how much time he could spend working to commercialize his idea while still a salaried researcher. Vemula says that all of the policies were absent when talking about academic spin-offs. “And unless there are clear guidelines, it is very difficult to translate research.”
In 2009, the Indian government issued some guidelines on the commercialization of research. He says those aren’t implemented uniformly at institutional level. That presents a major barrier to researchers hoping to apply their findings.
This lack of translational research is one reason why Indian science has struggled to help raise living standards for most of the population, says Yamuna Krishnan, a biochemist who trained in India and now runs a lab at the University of Chicago, Illinois.
According to the World Bank, 10% of the population in 2019 lived below the poverty line (down from 22% in 2011), causing social problems, especially in rural areas. More than a twelfth of Indian children end up dropping out of school, with girls more likely to fail than boys.
Source: India struggles to turn science into societal benefits
The impact of India’s science policy on the growth of the bioeconomy and the quality of life: an inspiring story of a scientist
A return on investment, through innovation and a better quality of life, is why many countries invest so heavily in science, even though the extent of that return is difficult to quantify.
The Indian economy has grown by more than 5% a year for the past decade, and is expected to grow at similar or even higher rates in the coming years. But it leaves hundreds of millions of people behind, says Venni Venkata Krishna, who studies India’s science policy at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia.
Vemula was able to solve his issue by getting the policies approved by senior officials. He established his company, Sepio Health, in 2019 and expects to launch his first protective clothing next year. Colleagues at the institute are now following his lead and setting up their own spin-off companies, using the policies and paperwork that Vemula established.
This entire process can be done in a couple of weeks. “From the day you approach the institute, within two weeks we can review the entire process and give the permission” to set up a company.
It is an inspiring story but not all scientists are able to navigate the system. Many simply do not have the time, skills or willingness to find a way through. Esya Labs was set up by Krishnan to carry out her drug discovery research. In India, it was so difficult that I didn’t try. I knew I had to leave if it was to happen.
She found a stark contrast between the way universities in India and the US apply results. She says that the organization should have clear policies and frameworks to engage companies.
India has achieved some impressive figures even after it failed. India’s bioeconomy grew more than US$80 billion in just 2 years, according to the council.
He says that policymakers don’t understand that different research areas produce progress at different rates. The astonishing speed of development in information technology, for example, is impossible to replicate in the life sciences, which require longer-term, stable financial support.
India spent less than 0.7% of its gross domestic product (GDP) on research and development in 2020, the most recent year for which data are available. In the same year, China’s research expenditure made up more than 2% of GDP, and Brazil, a smaller economy than India, also spent proportionally more.
In India, promised government research funds often dry up or arrive late, which makes it hard to attract and keep junior researchers. If I was a graduate student with a grant but no salary, how would I want to do anything innovative? Jameel is curious.
The subsequent lack of innovation in many sectors slows bottom-up development across the economy, and instead ties it to targeted short-term and top-down investment. One reason why India has posted strong economic growth rates over the past decade, observers say, is that it has prioritized investment in some sectors, such as IT, and boosted the use of goods and services by a relatively small proportion of the population.
These policies have created a boom in the Indian middle class, which has grown by more than 6% a year since the mid 1990s and now accounts for 31% of the population.
He thinks that the inequalities have gone up over the past decade or so. There hasn’t been a trickle-down of benefits from technology to the less well-off in India.
In informal discussions between senior academics and government science advisers, India has considered reorganizing these institutions into clusters, he adds, to generate critical mass, enable more cross-disciplinary research and encourage partnerships with private industry. A basic outline for a scheme has not made much progress in talks between senior academics, advisers and government officials.
India lags behind high-income countries in some indicators of human development. The scores in the radar charts are compared to the rankings of all other countries.
India has a smaller proportion of people with a university-degree-level qualification than many other nations, but those who do get an undergraduate degree are much more likely to complete a PhD. Indeed, India has the highest proportion of university graduates who go on to complete a doctoral degree in the world, at around 5% of graduates.
Why India has a name: Its not a bath, but it does make a world better: a case study on India’s year in science
The social reformer and non-violent leader of India’s freedom movement, Mahatma Gandhi, once said: “In a gentle way, you can shake the world.” In August this year, the Chandrayaan-3 lander delicately extended its legs, bounced once, twice and settled near the lunar south pole. The Moon shook a bit too.
By then, 2023 was already a momentous year for India. In April, it overtook China to become the world’s most populous nation, with 1.4 billion inhabitants. It is home to more than one in six of the world’s people.
In September, at a meeting in New Delhi of the G20 group of the world’s biggest economies, speculation around plans to rename the country Bhārat, its name in several Indian languages, began in earnest.
Menon tells us how India has developed because of the story of water. We chat with solar physicist Yoshita Baruah, who is investigating a different kind of storm caused by global warming.
Along with many other nations, India faces a crisis caused by the over-prescription of antibiotics. We report on how Indian researchers are tackling this and other public-health problems.
Source: India’s year in science
Mental health of Indian scientists: An interview with Annapoorna Petrovanova-Krausey-Maldacena
The nation’s greatest strength is its people. The government has introduced schemes to encourage people to stay and to lure back brilliant minds who have already left. One solution could be to foster a stronger entrepreneurial culture.
India is one of many countries to be concerned about workplace mental health. We talk to Annapoorna P. K. about her work on mental health of Indian scientists.