With the G20 presidency, India has an opportunity to set the global agenda and be in the limelight for at least a year.
But, experts say that if it has to be a real leader, it has to do some heavy lifting for quite a number of years.
Which country is the real leader now?
The U.S. is the real leader, as it has retained its global leadership for almost a century since World War I.
It is not just its military might but its technological superiority in various fields that has made the US the largest competitive open economy.
This success is also attributed to the culture of innovation backed by a solid base of research and development (R&D).
What are India’s initiatives?
In 2016, India launched the Atal Innovation Mission (AIM) to create an ecosystem to promote innovation and entrepreneurship in the country.
All these are steps in the right direction, but the foundation of all this lies in how much India spends on R&D, in relation to other G20 countries.
What does SDG say about R&D?
Even the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) Agenda 2030 aims to build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization and foster innovation.
In particular, SDG Target 9.5 calls upon nations to encourage innovation and substantially increase the numbers of researchers as well as public and private spending on R&D.
What are some of the methods to quantify innovation?
Gross domestic expenditure on R&D (GERD) is the proposed aggregate to quantify a country’s commitment to R&D.
According to UNESCO’s Institute for Statistics (UIS) latest report, G20 nations accounted for 90.6% of global GERD (current, PPP$) in 2018.
Global R&D expenditure has reached a record high of 2.2 trillion current PPP$ (2018).
Research Intensity (R&D expenditure as a percentage of GDP) has gradually increased from 1.43% in 1998 to 1.72% in 2018.
Looking at spending in PPP terms is a reasonable metric for welfare measurement in the economy.
But, when it comes to technological prowess in high-end activities of R&D, it all boils down to measuring hard currency in US dollars.
What is the position of G20 countries?
The G20 countries, accounting for 86.2% of the global GDP and over 60% of the global population in 2021, are the leaders in every way.
The US leads the G20 by spending $581.6 billion on R&D followed by the European Union ($323 billion), and China ($297.3 billion) in 2018.
India lags way behind with a paltry R&D expenditure of only $17.6 billion in 2018.
In terms of their relative shares in G20 R&D expenditure, the US is way ahead with 36%, followed by the EU (20%), and China (18%).
India’s share is less than 1% of G20 R&D expenditure in dollar terms.
What is the lesson?
The only way to achieve India’s dream of becoming a real leader seems to be by repurposing its massive expenditures on various subsidies towards a multi-fold increase in expenditure on research and innovation.
While the absolute expenditure on R&D provides a sense of scale, their percentage to the respective GDP provides the research intensity (RI).
In 2018, South Korea has the highest RI at 4.43%, followed by Japan (3.21%), Germany (3.09%), the US (2.83%), France (2.19%), China (2.14%) and EU (2.02%). India is ranked 17th (RI of 0.65%) in the G20.
One of the non-G20 countries that have a higher RI than the G20 countries is Israel, which, while having an R&D expenditure of just $18.6 billion, a population of only 9.3 million, has the highest RI of over 5%.
Israel is known as a land of innovations, be it in defence or agriculture.
Why Israel is known as a land of innovations?
The innovation system in Israel is a fundamental driver of its economic growth and competitiveness.
The government has played an important role in
financing innovation, particularly in SMEs, and
providing well-functioning frameworks for innovation, such as venture capital (VC), incubators, strong science-industry links, and high-quality university education.
Israel builds a strong case to show that despite being a smaller nation, sustainable growth can be achieved by prioritising investments in R&D. This is a lesson India can learn.
What can India do during its G20 Presidency?
During India’s G20 presidency, the Science20 group, has the theme of “Disruptive Science for Innovative and Sustainable Development”.
This focuses on universal holistic health; cure and prevention of disease; clean energy for a greener future; and connecting science to society and culture.
It will be interesting to see how India can leverage this for the shared prosperity of the world.
India needs not only technological development and brilliance in various sectors ranging from defence to agriculture to manufacturing.
But it also needs innovations that can safeguard its basic environment - land, water, and air.
