Innovation Landscapes in India: Need of Dynamic Functional Connectivity !!!

Transcript of Speech by Dr. M.K. Bhan, Secretary DBT at Innovation Landscapes Conference, New Delhi, 24-25 August 2012

INNOVATION: manifestation of CREATIVITY through HORIZONTAL & VERTICAL connections

"Our research capabilities in many of fields of sciences are inefficient. True lesson about innovation is that discovery has to be made in the basic concepts. When talking about innovation landscapes, we have to consider both demand and supply side issues. But most crucially, unless demand side is connected, all institutional initiatives will fail.

Currently Indian economy is being driven by business and service innovation. Why India has contributed so less to innovation which is science lead? One of the reasons may be primarily in the last decade the pressures were predominant for the incremental innovation. In India, companies and institutions are not ready for major/radical innovation.

We can understand the significance of demand from one example of UN buying its 70% drugs from India to distribute it into the developing and least developed countries. Work of Indian organizations like Serum Institute, Shanta Biotech and Bharat Biotech is exemplary in this regard. We have to remember that supply side solution will not work.

There are two most important enablers of Science-Technology Policy. One is quest for blue sky discovery and other is user driven discovery. Between them lies crucial aspect of translational research. For developing capabilities in translational research we have to have sense of happenings around the world. We must remember that innovation happen in contact spots—pools and pools of contacts. If the contact circle is very poor then there is lesser certainty of chance encounters, collision and interaction between different random ideas which are necessary for conceptualizing innovative solutions. This you can term as ‘Neuroscience Jugaad’, because if we continue to develop different circles of contact for our knowledge, organizations and society as a whole, the memory reacts at a right time for collaboration directed towards meaningful dialogue for the problems at hand. Countries like USA, Canada, and Finland have deeply invested in connectivity.

Looking at the current situation in India, we have very few institutions which have good set up enabling fostering of connectivity across the disciplines of knowledge touching the daily problems of life which are need based. One of the good examples is Banaras Hindu University where you have everything from Medicine, Engineering, Mathematics, Social Sciences, Liberal Arts, and Architecture etc. We need institutions which have dynamic functional connectivity through intra-institutional and inter-institutional linkages. Once a scientist asked me in a pub near Stanford University whether innovators are created or they are trained? Taking a cue from him, DBT started Stanford-India Biodesign Program. This program consolidated our belief that innovators can be trained. 

CONFLUENCE of ARTS and SCIENCE

What can be novel work in public health and medicine which can be said as need driven and which is done without specialized incubation? One of the students in Stanford India BioDesign Program came up with idea to work for 300 hours in the hospital and to discover 300 novel ideas for research inspired from basic needs derived from the 300 observations. Along with this we need integration of design with that of engineering. In Stanford University Bioengineering Program, I could see 80 % Biology and 20 % Engineering. In institutions like IIT Delhi, I could see 100 % Engineering and no Biology. Thus we also need process optimization innovation.

Currently India and government offers great opportunity for redesigning. It can also be said about procurement policies, education, health, food-agriculture policy. Lack of standards in many areas is actually causing the problem. Government of India is unable to handle vaccine policy because of lack of regulatory standards.

Regarding technical competence, there are three types of countries. First category contains USA which is leader in that domain. Second category contains China which has aggressive pursuit. Third category is of India which is trying to catch up. We have always failed to take initiative. When there was nano all over the world, we started to establish Nano Mission. A lot of research in India is on models and not on actual problem which can be translated. A level of complexity in the regulatory structure makes it more problematic to deliver the research for social benefit in minimum possible time. As CROs are hugely expensive, we have to create many more translational platforms.

Regarding institutions, we have arrived at a point where innovation and translational models have to be embedded in basic science. We need to debate on what will be the 21st Century University in India. We have to see how to lower the costs and reduce the time lag for establishing institutions which connect many expert resources. After all, innovation requires massive number of people who at the same respect the needs of the people and also competent enough to work on intellectual challenges to arrive at the solutions which are simple in operational design, affordable and environmentally sustainable. Looking at the complexity of governance, we need more spatially distributed knowledge and experts as well as institutions which have greater density of interaction within different knowledge systems, disciplines and professional practices. There is no scope for lack of preparation while building the institutions for innovation.

C.P. SNOW`s TWO CULTURES

Our current universities do not offer a kind of milieu where formal achievement of grades is valued than that of experience. It is experience which changes life and not just merely obsessive passion about grades in academic institutions. No experience, no ideas and therefore no innovation. In the educational set up we have today, students have no experience giving engagements. Science-technology graduates are often very straight jacketed human beings. They lack maturity to handle many social-political perspectives. Our universities don’t incentivise conceptualization and imagination. The role of universities should be that of conceptualizes and not that of executioner. Thus building 21st century University will be massive challenge. One other issue which requires immediate attention is that of measurement. We lack authentic benchmarks to measure the performance of scientists, scientific activities and likewise.

Policy requires very different framework. As things are happening very intensely, we need mixture of policy and services for innovation. Diversity of HR needed for vertical innovation is dramatically different and immense. Vast amount of different specialists are needed along with leaders who have systemic understanding of many fields. Today, amidst massive challenges there is increasing need of dialogue between government and society. New relations between science, government, bureaucracy and society must start to collaborate. 

We have never been product innovation country. We have been knowledge driven country. We did a brilliant job of self reliance in many sectors. The demand of the situation is to prepare ourselves for mid-level innovation. Obviously, we have to aim for high level innovation but currently the practical task is to strive to shape a knowledge ecosystem which has capability to push us to become mid-level innovator rather than waste our resources in quest of radical innovation.

Problem with Indian situation is that we don’t seem to have appetite for new things. USA has developed systems which have spread deeply and across the board to facilitate the appreciation, adaptation, contextualization, alteration, experimenting, diffusing, discussing and supporting new ideas. We have to learn to respect experience. Our education system needs overhaul. There has to be serious attention towards teaching and how to cultivate teaching with that of research. We have to focus on social problems like water purification. As a country we have to be ambitious and be ready to make mistakes. We have to percolate the belief in the policymakers and establishment that innovation is not at all about only research. Part of it is about supply and demand and other part is about transformation of institutions." 

In short, India is paradise to work with lot of problems and immense opportunities to innovate.