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Is Indian Academic Research Worth the Cost?

Every year, India spends public money on research that few read, fewer cite, and almost no industry uses. Yet quietly, something is changing — and the real question is whether the country is ready to see it.

Somewhere in a university laboratory, a young doctoral scholar is bent over a spectrometer at midnight, measuring isotopic ratios in geological samples that might one day help explain the tectonic formation of the Indian subcontinent—earning a Junior Research Fellowship of ₹37,000 a month — a figure that rose from ₹31,000 in January 2023 when the Department of Science and Technology revised stipends upward by 19% for JRF holders and 20% for Senior Research Fellows, who now receive ₹42,000 a month from their third year onward. The revision, welcomed by scholars, nevertheless came with a reminder of what remains unaddressed: non-NET fellows — those without national eligibility certification — continue to receive a non-NET fellowship of ₹8,000 per month, a figure unchanged for over a decade. The scholar at the spectrometer, if among the more fortunate cohort, is funded. He is also, statistically speaking, unlikely to publish before submitting his thesis. And under current rules, he no longer has to.

That last detail matters. In November 2022, the University Grants Commission officially notified new PhD regulations that scrapped the mandatory requirement for doctoral scholars to publish research papers in peer-reviewed journals before submitting their thesis. Earlier, the rules required PhD scholars to publish at least one paper in a refereed journal and present at two conferences before their thesis could be adjudicated. The UGC’s rationale was clear: mandatory publication had become counterproductive. A study commissioned by the UGC found that 75% of papers submitted to journals by doctoral candidates followed UGC guidelines but did not meet the quality bar of Scopus-indexed publications. The pressure was producing paper, not knowledge. UGC Chairman M. Jagadesh Kumar stated that “some people erroneously think that mandatory publication of a research paper before the submission of a PhD thesis decides its quality” and that “high-quality PhD thesis work leads to quality publications.” The regulation was, on paper, a reasonable reform. In practice, it opens a question that the country has not yet answered honestly: if publication is no longer a floor, what is?

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A reasonable citizen observing this scene — the funded scholar, the lifted mandate, the government writing a cheque for ₹725 crore extra in fellowship disbursements — might ask whether India is simply paying for the appearance of a research culture. The question is neither cynical nor rhetorical. It is the central tension in Indian science policy, and it deserves a straight answer.

India’s public investment in research remains stubbornly low. The country’s Gross Expenditure on Research and Development has remained at 0.6–0.7% of GDP, below the global........

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