Government, corporate spending on R&D should be increased: VIT chancellor

Reiterating his long-standing demand for an increase in the allocation of funds for research and development (R&D) activities, G. Viswanathan, founder-chancellor, Vellore Institute of Technology (VIT), on Friday said the Central and State governments and corporate firms should allocate more funds for higher education and research to enable a large section of youngsters to pursue higher studies.

In his presidential address at the inaugural session of the 15th edition of graVITas ’24, a three-day annual international techno-management festival of VIT, Mr. Viswanathan said that poor allocation of funds for R&D had reflected in the low number of patents registered in the country.

For example, around 56,000 patent applications were made by India in 2020, when compared to 14.97 lakh patents by China in the same year. “In other words, the number of patents applied for in India was only 4% of China’s in the same year. More government spending would have allowed educational institutions to allocate more seats in higher education for students to pursue it seriously,” he said.

In terms of patents granted per million population, he said that India was lagging far behind other countries. In South Korea, around 2,100 patents were granted per million population, followed by Japan (1,600), U.S. (950), China (296), and India (6), he said.

“Poor government spending on higher education has also reflected in low staff strength in patent offices in the country. For example, China has 13,700 patent staff, and the U.S. has around 8,100 staff, whereas India has only around 860 staff in patent offices,” he said.

The VIT chancellor said that corporate spending on R&D was also low. China spends around 75% of the total gross expenditure on research activities, followed by the U.S. (75%), and India (36%), he said.

Manoranjan Ram, vice-president, Danieli India Limited; Anand Pujari, education manager, Autodesk India Private Limited; and Sankar Viswanathan and G.V. Selvam, VIT vice-presidents, were present on the occasion.

Published - September 27, 2024 10:22 pm IST