S&T ADVISER TO SECSTATE ENGAGES PRINCIPAL SCIENTIFIC

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 NEW DELHI 000967 SIPDIS SIPDIS STATE FOR G, OES/PCI, OES/STC, OES/SAT, OES/EGC, AND SCA/INS STATE FOR STAS STATE PASS TO NSF FOR INTERNATIONAL PROGRAMS E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: SENV ENRG TSPL TRGY KSCA KGHG IN SUBJECT: S&T ADVISER TO SECSTATE ENGAGES PRINCIPAL SCIENTIFIC ADVISER TO THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA ON ENHANCING INDO-US SCIENTIFIC COLLABORATIONS NEW DELHI 00000967 001.2 OF 003 ¶1. SUMMARY: Dr. Nina Fedoroff, S&T Adviser to the US Secretary of State and the AID Administrator, met with Dr. Rajagopala Chidambaram, Principal Scientific Adviser (PSA) to the Government of India (GOI) during her recent visit to India and discussed the scope and status of Indo - U.S. S&T collaborations. Dr. Chidambaram elaborated on GOI's plans for enhancement in S&T funding and capacity building with a focus on attracting the best talent towards research. He highlighted the unique challenges of innovation in India, as it has to address the needs of the industrial as well as the rural sectors and strive for inclusive growth. He also reiterated the need for a broader engagement in S&T between the two countries and for simplifying the visa process for scientists traveling from India to USA. Some of the areas he suggested for collaborative programs include closing the nuclear fuel cycle for power, biofuels, renewable energies, supercomputers, climate modeling, biotechnology and nanotechnology. END SUMMARY. -------------- -------------- Enhancement in Science and Technology Funding with a Long -------------- -------------- -------------- Term Vision of Inclusive Growth -------------- ¶2. Dr. Chidambaram who was also the former Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC),started the meeting by welcoming Dr. Fedoroff (SciCouns and SCI FSN were also present) and mentioning how most young Indian scientists have a strong affinity for research in the US and hence is their most favorite destination. Looking at India's aspiration to be a developed nation by 2020 and the relative slow growth in S&T in the past two decades, funding for S&T R&D has been increased three fold from $5.9 billion in the tenth plan period (2001 - 2006) to $18.7 billion in the eleventh plan period (2007 - 2012). He further added that if one looks at the history of any nation, progress coincided with enhanced investment in S&T. ¶3. When Dr. Fedoroff asked him what were the key challenges for India, Dr. Chidambaram said it was joint planning for the rural and the urban India. Innovation needs for the industrial and rural sectors of India were very different. No single formula could address both. He added that his views on approaches to innovation were recently published by the US National Academy of Sciences in their quarterly magazine "Issues on Science and Technology", Fall ¶2007. The article entitled "India's Changing Innovation System: Achievements, Challenges, and Opportunities for Cooperation" was submitted to the US Board on Science, Technology, and Economic Policy for it's project on "Comparative Innovation Policy: Best Practice for the 21st Century". ¶4. Dr. Chidambaram further added that funding during the eleventh plan period has been enhanced for different GOI agencies including Department of Science and Technology (DST),Department of Biotechnology (DBT),Department of Information Technology (DIT), Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) and Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) in order to address India's diverse needs. Further, to ensure focused and time bound output, all agencies and institutions have been strongly encouraged to work as interdisciplinary teams and partner with the private sector. Also, several agencies in India have modeled some of their activities after the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program in USA as it has spawned innovation and entrepreneurship. ¶5. He expressed happiness that some success has already been achieved by DBT with the introduction of a similar program. The program is called the Small Business Innovation and Research Initiative (SBIRI) which has led to new drugs and food crops being introduced in the market. Other agencies hope to implement similar programs. When asked about the level of industry-academic collaborations , Dr. Chidambaram accepted that unlike the US, there is a huge disconnect between academia and industry in India. Though the new funding schemes encouraged cooperation, they are slow to take off. The transformation of the academic professor to an entrepreneur is taking time. Hence an effort is also on to help the two to work together, with provision for fast track funding of up to 90% to academia and R&D institutions who have industrial partners, with at least 10% contribution from the industry. -------------- -------------- NEW DELHI 00000967 002.2 OF 003 Strategies for Capacity Building and Attracting the Best -------------- -------------- -------------- Talent for S&T R&D -------------- ¶6. Further commenting on the need for trained human resources, Dr. Chidambaram elaborated on the problems faced in India. He said the continued high rate of growth in India in the last few years, and especially in the Information and Communication Technology (ICT), had led to a situation where most science and engineering graduates take up ICT jobs which are relatively well paid as compared to those in academia and research labs. So in spite of enhanced funding, there are no takers for positions in S&T R&D. Hence with the objective of building capacity and attracting the best talent towards scientific research, many new schemes are being introduced. One such scheme starts with scholarships for school children from age 10 through their university education over a 12 year period. The program also has provision for mentors from a very early stage. Another program provides support for graduate studies and guaranteed employment with assurance of funding upto age 32 if the student pursues a career in research. ¶7. This latter research program model has been successfully tried out at the University of Bombay. Graduate students of the University worked with mentors from two leading research institutes namely the Bhabha Atomic Research Institute (BARC) and Tata Institute for fundamental Research (TIFR). This has led to enhanced R&D output and better trained personnel from the University. Leading Indian industries are being persuaded to permit some of their bright young engineers and scientists to work in academic institutions or national labs with corporate-level salaries. Companies like Tatas and Mahindra & Mahindra have already shown interest. (Note: The Sixth Pay Commission, set up after a gap of 12 years by the GOI to reduce the huge disparity in wages between the employees of the public and the private sectors, submitted its report on 24th March, 2008. Now employees of government and publicly-funded organizations including academics and researchers can expect to receive average pay increases of 40%. This should help in attracting and retaining talent. End Note.) -------------- Research to be Focused and India-Centric -------------- ¶8. When Dr. Fedoroff enquired about the focus of the research, Dr. Chidambaram said that the three fold increase in R&D budget has been done with a multi pronged strategy. This included supporting open-ended basic research, directed basic-cum-applied research and focused technology development with public-private partnership. All research was to be interdisciplinary and focus on issues which are relevant to India. He said that unfortunately if one were to go by the citation index, Indian research is predominantly incremental in nature rather than original and generally guided by developments in the west and mostly irrelevant to the needs of the country. The exceptions are in Indian space and atomic energy research and to a limited extent in defense applications. One example of India-centric study, which could draw upon the huge knowledge base in the country and also lead to immediate returns, is the study of Ayurveda (traditional Indian medicine). India plans to develop drugs in an accelerated fashion in areas were Ayurveda has already proven to be very effective. One example is the cure for arthritis being developed by the CSIR under it's Ayurveda based program called "Reverse Pharmacology". The drug is expected to reach the market in two to three years time. ¶9. Dr. Chidambaram further elaborated that some of the other focused areas of R&D include automobile industry, bio medical instrumentation/devices, precision machine tools and optical instrumentation. In these sectors it has been observed that there are clusters of companies who have not moved up the value chain. He said the task has been given to Technology Information Forecasting & Assessment Council (TIFAC),a technology think tank which he heads. TIFAC is involved in transforming these traditional sectors of industries by facilitating interaction with other knowledge partners and in some cases even directing technology development from concept to prototype development. NEW DELHI 00000967 003.2 OF 003 -------------- Accelerating Indo - US Cooperation -------------- ¶10. When Dr. Fedoroff enquired about what he thought was the way forward to enhance interaction between the two countries, Dr. Chidambaram said that India would like to work more closely with the USA on big science projects. These projects could be those for the public good or could lead to advances in S&T. He further added that many countries wanted to collaborate with India due to its continued growth in the areas like ICT, biotechnology and manufacturing, and its large talent pool. One example of how India and USA could interact is Indian participation in the EU Large Hadron Collider (LHC) program. He said India is investing cash and providing in-kind support for this project, which includes USD 30 million and many scientists and engineers participating in the building of a sub systems for the LHC. Indian scientists and engineers travel to the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) Centre at Geneva for installation, testing and conducting experiments of interest to them.(Note: Similar collaborations are ongoing for the seven-country ITER project in which both India and US are partners and in support of the proposed International Linear Collider where the Department of Atomic Energy in India is working closely with Fermi National Laboratory and the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center in the US. End Note.) ¶11. Dr. Chidambaram added that the areas of cooperation could also include closing the nuclear fuel cycle for power, bio fuels, renewable energies, supercomputers, issues related to climate change & modeling, biotechnology and nanotechnology. He said that India needs the US in the short term for upgrading its S&T infrastructure and even hand-holding in a wide range of technologies. The US, he suggested, would need India as a long term partner in many of the above areas to develop sustainable technologies. Thus, this could be a mutually beneficial partnership meeting the aspirations of the people of both countries. ¶12. He observed that in general there was a very positive climate in Indo - US relations. The few issues which hinder cooperation are the well known Visa Mantis checks, nuclear non-proliferation concerns and high technology restrictions. There are huge benefits in India and US working together and as the level of engagement has been raised to a strategic partnership, these issues need to be resolved. Dr. Fedoroff agreed to look at ways and means in which she could facilitate removing some of these obstacles. She said her interactions during her visit gave her a good insight of the wide range of Indian initiatives in S&T and that she foresees enhancement in the level of engagement between the two countries. ¶13. This cable has been cleared by Dr. Fedoroff. WHITE