Can India Democratise Its Science?

What does it mean to democratise science? At its simplest, it means widening participation, ensuring that the opportunity to ask meaningful questions, access resources, and contribute to knowledge is not confined to a narrow set of institutions or individuals. It means that scientific talent, wherever it exists, can find expression. It also means that public investment in science serves not only excellence at the top but also capacity across the system.

India’s scientific potential is not confined to a handful of elite campuses. It resides in hundreds of universities and thousands of colleges that educate the vast majority of students. If these institutions remain peripheral to the research enterprise, the country risks leaving much of its intellectual capital untapped. Therefore, democratizing science is not merely a question of fairness. It is a question of national capability.

Recent institutional developments, including the creation of the Anusandhan National Research Foundation (ANRF), explicitly recognize this ambition. Yet a closer look at how scientific proposals are evaluated suggests that the path toward democratisation remains incomplete.

Uneven Funding

Across funding agencies, evaluation processes are often perceived as conservative and insufficiently attentive to structural inequities. Review panels, though composed of accomplished scholars, can draw from a relatively narrow pool of experts, mainly from well-known institutions. While this continuity brings experience, it can also reinforce existing ideas about what counts as “good science,” making it harder for unconventional or context-driven ideas to be recognized.

A growing concern within India’s research ecosystem is that a disproportionate share of funding continues to flow to already well-endowed centrally funded institutions such as the IITs, AIIMS, NITs, and central universities. These institutions have earned their stature and require sustained investment, particularly in a country where overall R&D spending remains stuck at just 0.6 to 0.7 percent of GDP - far below global peers like China and the United States. Yet the issue is not merely how much India spends on research, but how that spending is distributed. Recent budget allocations underscore this concentration: IITs received over Rs. 11,000 crore, central universities more than Rs. 16,000 crore, NITs nearly Rs. 5,700 crore, and centrally funded medical institutions roughly Rs. 15,000 crore combined, while the UGC, which supports a much broader university ecosystem, received comparatively modest funding. The question is not whether elite institutions deserve support, but whether India has a transparent framework to assess the broader returns on public investment across different categories of institutions.

At present, such a framework is largely absent. There is no widely accessible, institution-wise dataset linking grant allocation to outcomes such as publications, patents, technology transfer, regional development, or talent retention. In the absence of such data, India risks debating science policy without adequate evidence.

Over the past two decades, major centrally funded institutional systems have accounted for roughly two thirds of India’s research publications, reflecting both their capacity and the concentration of resources within them. Meanwhile, reports from bodies such as NITI Aayog continue to highlight persistent constraints in state universities, including limited infrastructure, difficulty attracting skilled researchers, and restricted access to advanced equipment. These institutions educate most India’s students but remain underrepresented in research funding and output.

Structural Paradox

This creates a structural paradox. India spends relatively little on research and development overall, and within that limited pool, resources are unevenly distributed. The result is not merely scarcity, but what may be described as “concentrated scarcity.”

The implications for democratizing science are significant. When researchers from less endowed institutions compete with those from well-funded centers using identical metrics such as the h-index, citation counts, and academy fellowships, the playing field is inherently uneven.

Beyond the evaluation of scientific proposals, similar disparities are visible across other facets of funding and recognition, including awards, bilateral grants, fellowships, and access to major research facilities. As a result, talented students, particularly those supported by independent fellowships, often gravitate toward well-funded institutions and universities.

There is also a persistent inconsistency in evaluation logic. Proposals with strong translational potential are sometimes questioned for a lack of novelty, while fundamental research proposals are asked to demonstrate immediate application. If democratization is the goal, reform must go beyond incremental adjustments.

While no country has fully solved the problem of unequal access in research ecosystems, international experience shows that thoughtful policy design can widen participation without diluting excellence. The United States has used targeted funding programmes to reduce regional disparities, while the European Union and the United Kingdom have broadened definitions of merit through narrative evaluations and widening-participation schemes. Germany’s emphasis on stable institutional funding demonstrates that equity improves when universities are not entirely dependent on competitive grants, and China’s large-scale expansion of research funding shows the importance of both scale and distribution. Brazil, meanwhile, has strengthened participation through decentralised state-level research foundations. The broader lesson is clear: democratization in science and research does not emerge automatically from open competition alone; it requires deliberate structural design.

In the Indian context, several reforms are worth serious consideration. First, contextualized evaluation that assesses research relative to available resources, institutional constraints, and teaching responsibilities can better capture ingenuity under limitations. Second, dedicated funding streams for less endowed institutions can broaden participation without lowering standards. Third, narrative curricula vitae and partially blind review processes can reduce overreliance on institutional prestige.

Equally important are capacity-building measures such as shared infrastructure, technical staff support, and regional research clusters.

Transparency must be central to reform. Funding agencies, including ANRF, should publish annual, institution-wise dashboards on grant allocation, proposal success rates, review panel diversity, and long-term outcomes.

India’s research and development spending may need to rise. However, unless the architecture of opportunity, including who gets funded, how they are evaluated, and what ecosystems support them, is rethought, increased spending alone may simply amplify existing inequalities. The question is not whether India can afford to democratize science. It is whether it can afford not to.

(The writer is an ANRF Prime Minister Professor at COEP Technological University, Pune, and former Director of the Agharkar Research Institute, Pune. Views personal.)