Private R&D funding must be scaled up: Ex-ISRO chairman Somanath

BENGALURU: Former Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) Chairman S Somanath on Tuesday said the need now is for the government and allied organisations to move away from funding start-ups in research and development (R&D) and deep tech. Instead, they should become buyers and the private sector should fund more in startups for R&D. There is also a need to focus and improve upon industry-based R&D. The government presently purchases Rs 1.5 lakh crore worth products from the startups that it funds while exports are worth Rs 35 crore. More export and business-oriented models are needed for the future, he said during a panel discussion -- Pioneering the Next Decade: Building Indias Frontier Tech Future -- as part of the 28th edition of the Bengaluru Tech Summit. Prashanth Prakash, founding partner, Accel Partners, said the R&D budget should also be scaled up. He used the platform to urge the governments to increase the R&D budget as it remains less than 1% of the GDP. He said the Union government has also created a new R&D funding account for deep tech and other sectors. Somanath said there is no shortage of talent and intellectual capacity in India. But now a suitable environment and infrastructure need to be created to bring back the talent that left India to universities and opportunities overseas.