Imperatives
for an Innovation Agenda in India
In the fiscal year 2011, the
number of applications for patents filed in India rose to 37,000 from 34,000 in
the previous year. Now consider this—of these applications, 80 per cent came
from outside India.
Even as India continues to make
its mark as a ‘knowledge’ economy, the creation, application, commercialization
and protection of knowledge—all need more work before India can be at the
forefront of innovation in the world. Above all, there needs to be a national
agenda for innovation, which penetrates down from policy to the individual user.
Before we delve into the strategy
for innovation, let us see why innovation is pivotal to the country’s growth. Just
15 years ago, there was no World Wide Web or profusion of dotcoms and social
networking platforms, no ubiquitous cellphones, no sequenced genome and no
carbon nanotubes. Science and technology have been advancing in the past couple
of decades, making people smarter and more capable every day. The internet has
become a democratizing force today and globalization is a dominating reality.
Both as a cause and consequence, it is inevitable for individuals,
organizations and nations to innovate. For India specifically, innovation is
critical to ensure that gaps between the oft-mentioned ‘two Indias’ can be
narrowed and economic and social growth is more inclusive.
By finding more efficient ways to
work, innovation can reduce cost and increase revenue. By finding simpler, more
convenient and even aesthetic solutions, innovation can help enhance a
citizen’s quality of life. Innovation places the information and communication
technology (ICT) industry centre-stage, making it an engine of the knowledge
economy.
Learning
from other countries
When it comes to policy, the US,
UK, Europe and China are some of the leading examples of nations with clear
innovation agendas outlined.
In the UK, the existing framework
under the Department for Innovation, Universities & Skills (DIUS) has been
performing well, especially on the lifelong learning and early-stage venture capital
front. The Innovation Nation White Paper outlines the future of innovation in
the country, providing intellectual leadership by suggesting new policies based
on new imperatives. Highlights include provisioning for ‘hidden’ innovation and
demand-driven ideas and fostering collaboration between public, private and non-governmental
organizations (NGOs) to transform public services. Aside from this, it stresses
on reforming the Small Business Research Initiative (SBRI) and incentivizing
enterprises with investment and expertise to convert research into innovation.
To prepare the next generation of innovators, it recommends getting educational
institutions to emphasize on STEM (science, technology, engineering and
mathematics).
The US, recognizes a vision and strong culture of innovation, and
more importantly, successful commercialization of innovation in the country. The
National Innovation Initiative (NII) outlines the next phase in this journey,
focusing strongly on the three pillars of talent, investment and
infrastructure. In both, the US and the UK, there is recognition of the fact
that the focus of research is skewed towards certain sectors—health science and
defence in the former and pharmaceuticals and aerospace in the latter. There
is, therefore, a conscious move to even the playfield for innovation in all
sectors.
The European Union (EU) stresses on innovation at both the Union
level as well as the regional level. For Europe 2020, the three priorities
identified include smart growth, sustainable growth and inclusive growth. The
EU’s Innovation Policy places strong emphasis on social innovation, recognizing
it as “an important new field which should be nurtured.” The Policy suggests
creating a virtual hub of social entrepreneurs and supporting them with a
European Social Fund (ESF).
China has been a strong science and technology innovation player.
The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), along with
the Ministry for Science and Technology have been reviewing the policies for
innovation in the country and have come up with gaps that we, in India, would
be quite familiar with. As its medium and long-term objective, China wants its
dependence on foreign technology to reduce by 30 per cent and be among the top five
countries in the world in terms of domestic invention patents granted, and the
number of international citations of its scientific papers.
Imperatives
for India
The innovation strategy for India
needs to have four very clear objectives—enable innovation at the bottom of the
pyramid (for and by the next billion), create an innovation ecosystem, focus on
local capabilities for both near- and long-term benefits and harvest existing
innovations so that the benefits reach a larger potential user base. This
quadri-focal strategy is outlined in the figure below:
Even as the near-term benefits spark immediate interest, the long-term vision needs to be on creating a culture of innovation. And even as we invent solutions at the institutional level, we need to create a nurturing environment for innovations developed at the individual and grassroots level.
The four types of innovation need
an organization created to identify and seed ideas to harvest them. Budgets
need to be created to support innovations and interfaces evolved with other
government agencies, the private sector and academia to foster them. To build
the environment for innovation, the strategy needs to address the following factors:
Ensure
research converts to innovation:
Research is integral to innovation, but it doesn’t end there. For research to convert
into meaningful innovation there needs to be a three-way understanding between
the public sector, the private sector and the academia. Collaboration between
industry and labs, creating a framework for jointly-funded research, creating a
functioning lab-less research capability that leverages the existing facilities
in the private sector, universities and the government itself, and ensuring
feedback for research are the other important factors to keep in mind. What is
most critical, however, is to ensure that research is done with a focus on the
market and to ensure that the research is commercialized. Such research-to-commercialization
cycles will get enabled if there is industry partnership in setting the
research agenda. For a country like India, if it doesn’t lead to viable,
accessible, affordable solutions to real problems, then the innovation agenda
is inappropriate.
Create
a strong legal structure:
The intellectual property rights (IPR) ecosystem is a minefield that needs careful
navigation coupled with a sturdy framework. For innovation to truly prosper, it
is important that the IPR of all solutions and innovations are legally
protected. One of the biggest concerns for small entrepreneurs and individual
inventors is that they don’t know enough about existing IPR and end up
inadvertently infringing on them or losing their IPR to larger corporations. These
entrepreneurs need specialized legal and IPR support even as they are being
incubated. Small enterprises and individuals need to have access to online IPR
systems so that they can protect their IPR. Such systems should include online
patent filing. Above all else, though, this is an area where awareness levels
are extremely low. As we move towards an era where no new IPR can be created
without requiring support from existing IPRs, there needs to be a concerted
effort to educate people on IPR and make IPR a part of regular curriculum. For
instance, perhaps IPR education should be part of engineering courses and be
taught even at school level.
Enable
business partnerships and incubation:
The gap between idea and adoption is filled only by the successful
commercialization of research. For this, there need to be strong linkages
between research and industry. The industry, with its in-depth understanding of
the market and resources that can help bring innovation to market, can help
take the innovation to its logical conclusion. This can be through direct or
indirect involvement. An organization could support incubation through new and
existing qualified entrepreneurs, support technology acquisition through
buy-outs, or even have summer-break programs for potential student
entrepreneurs to work on their ideas. Institutions like HP Labs offer
opportunities for talent to be nurtured and ideas to be incubated. However, in
today’s complex world of technology, new innovations cannot thrive without
access to existing IPR. Therefore, to
spur innovation, it is critical to provide access to IPR related to existing
innovation. This can be through outright purchase of technology, patent
swapping, buy-outs of relevant companies through government-sponsored industry
consortiums, commercial arrangements where patents can be freely used or a
combination of these techniques.
Encourage
community participation:
Inventions like jugaad are examples
of demand-driven responses. Jugaad
maximizes asset utilization by reusing the same pumpset that helps in
irrigation, to also power the cart that helps take the farm produce to the mandi and provide locomotion to the
villagers, thus optimizing the economy as a whole and making the local economy
more efficient. In fact, jugaad is a symbol
of community-driven innovation.
However, it is also a perfect
example of how our policies stifle innovation. As per the Central Motor
Vehicles rules, jugaad is illegal.
Not only is jugaad illegal, there have
also been no steps taken to introduce this innovative solution to other parts
of the country such as the south or the east, thus depriving them of the
benefits from this innovation. Innovation would get a huge leg up if government
facilitates innovation and if one were to engage, besides research scientists
and engineers, rural citizens, individual innovators, academicians, CXOs,
government bureaucrats, district level officials and others. This engagement
has to happen both, bottom up, for ideas to be harnessed on a larger platform,
as well as top-down, to ensure a broader outreach for innovation, through a
consciously created conducive environment and not just through serendipity.
Conferences, workshops, awards, and other events are some of the ways to engage
with the community to create a mass base for innovation.
Develop
policies to incentivize innovation:
There are three requirements on the policy front for innovation—formulation of
appropriate strategies for promoting technological development, identification
of trade and fiscal measures to encourage technology development, and
developing of a framework for standardization, certification and accreditation.
Innovation needs a fertile
environment where it can take roots. Incentives in the form of capital investment,
finance and favorable taxation are critical. There also need to be policies for
the government to enable procurement of innovation. Current procurement
policies disincentivize innovation. Technology and IPR framework, availability
of a talent pool and better access to market are all necessary to foster
innovation as well.
Innovation, ultimately, thrives in
an environment where there is high accessibility to technology. Democratization
of ICT can go a long way in ensuring a platform for greater collaboration and
also catapulting India to its rightful place at the helm of global innovation.
India offers a unique chance and a
ready testing ground for new initiatives and services. Innovation aimed at
inventing for the next billion will be most critical to develop, because that
will help narrow the divide between the haves and the have-nots in the Indian
state. The proposed US $5 billion India Inclusive Innovation Fund[1],
to be launched by the Indian government later this year, is a step in the right
direction. Innovation, however, will always be driven by people’s creativity
and enterprise. And that’s what policy makers need to nurture.
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