Overview

The Indian research landscape, though relatively small, is quite complex, given the size of the country and the number of scientific, especially academic institutions. Compared to the rest of the world, India’s public expenditure on R & D has remained low, in the range of 0.6% and 0.9% of the GDP for quite some time now. Although, India’s share of worldwide research publications is 5.1%, that of patents remains just 1.3%. There are just four scientists for every 10,000 employees in non-academic fields. Of the 36.3 million students, 160,000 are enrolled for a PhD.

At the same time, India has been ranked an assertive number 13 in the “Nature” index for many years, ranking third only to China and the USA in the natural and engineering sciences. In contrast, Indian research in the social sciences and humanities is limited, in comparison to international standards.