Editorial: Why does the Nobel Prize elude Indian Science?

Low R&D spending, brain drain, bureaucratic hurdles, and risk-averse research practices are holding India back from achieving greater heights

It is that time of the year when the Nobel Prize announcements bring with them a familiar question: why is India, despite its immense scientific talent, unable to make the cut? India’s journey in modern science presents a stark paradox: while Indian-origin scientists and engineers lead research labs, major technology firms, and academic departments across the globe, the country has not won a Nobel Prize in a scientific category for a breakthrough achieved on domestic soil since Sir CV Raman in 1930. While scientists of Indian descent such as Har Gobind Khorana, Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar and Venkatraman Ramakrishnan have won Nobel Prizes, their groundbreaking work was conducted largely in Western research ecosystems. Poor spending on research and development, bureaucratisation of science administration, brain drain, a mismatch between scientific talent and the domestic research ecosystem, a culture of incrementalism over risk-taking, and limited participation of the private sector are among the major factors holding back the country from achieving greater heights. Low R&D spending has been a bane of Indian science. India invests a mere 0.65% of its GDP in R&D while advanced economies spend between 1.5% and 4.5%. The United States spends about 3.4% of its GDP on R&D, South Korea over 5%, Germany over 3%, and Japan more than 3.5%. Israel spends 4.5% of its GDP, the highest in the world, while China earmarks around 2.7% of its GDP for scientific research. Stifling regulations, outdated equipment, and limited resources for researchers ensure that Indian scientists remain stuck in a demotivating environment.

Basic science is the foundation from which innovation usually emerges. This is India’s weakest area. There is a need for a rethink to bridge the gap. Also, the country needs long-duration funding, with rigorous scientific review but considerably less administrative micromanagement. Experts have been advocating building a national shared research infrastructure. Niche scientific fields like genomics, proteomics, advanced imaging, biobanks, structural biology, AI, and computational platforms should be accessible across institutions. Nobel-winning research often comes from high-risk, unproven hypotheses. In India, academic incentives, including promotions, historically favour the quantity of publications over radical innovation. Researchers are frequently nudged toward safe, incremental studies rather than high-risk, exploratory projects. The private sector’s rising R&D share is a positive and necessary correction to India’s historically state-dominated research funding model. However, it is by itself not sufficient to close India’s technology gap with the countries it wants to compete with. A large share of private R&D is concentrated in a narrow set of sectors. Decades of a protected, import-substituting economy, followed by a services- and IT-outsourcing-led growth model, meant Indian firms could compete and profit without deep in-house research — unlike South Korean or Chinese firms, which were pushed by export-oriented industrial policy. Moreover, public research institutions and private industry have historically operated in separate silos.

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