State of Innovation and Higher Education in India: Will It Derail India’s Progress?

State of Innovation and Higher Education in India: Will It Derail India’s

Progress?

Shyam Sunder, Yale University

India-Yale Parliamentary Leadership Program, 2010Yale University, New Haven, CT

June 9-19, 2010

Sunder: Seed Farms of Innovation in India

An Overview• Innovation is the primary engine of economic growth• Adoption of innovation in the past has helped India reap its fruits and grow:

agriculture, software• Global competition will not allow India to sustain this strategy for long• An inconvenient truth: India lags in innovation, is falling further behind—a

largely unrecognized crisis• To lead India needs to seriously rethink the future of innovation in Indian

universities and the economy• Building seed farms of innovation needs political and academic

leadership, commitment, restructuring the institutions of innovation, financial investment, and social respect for scholarship

• Key elements: not buildings, budgets and bureaucracy but imagination, creativity and ideas from brilliant brains

• False hope of profit-driven colleges—which will not spend on talent or innovation—subsidy from government or charity necessary for quality

• Engage with this problem and India can address it as well as others• Better Solutions from within, urgently


Innovation as the Engine of Growth

• Broad agreement among economists: innovation is a key to the economic leadership and prosperity of societies

• Scientific and technological innovation in Germany, Japan and U.S. is widely cited as a source of their sustained economic prowess

• Innovation of thought and creativity in the arts, humanities, and social sciences has characterized the vitality of civilizations throughout history (including in India’s history)

• In this conversation, I shall take it as a given that innovation is a primary engine of economic growth

• Prosperity achieved through other means (e.g., imitation, natural resources and looting) is not sustainable for society as a whole


Adoption of Innovation

• Adoption of innovation in the past has helped India reap its fruits and grow

• India has done well at adoption and adaptation

• Examples:– Green revolution– Information technology and services


Green Revolution

• Food shortages of the 1960s• Pioneering work in US and Mexico, with support of US

foundations• Political decisions and commitment (C. Subramaniam)• Indian science (cross breeding with Indian varieties of

wheat)• Investment in infrastructure and industry (water, fertilizer)• Education and agricultural extension• Administrative structure for delivery of inputs• Procurement, warehousing and distribution• What is new from India’s agricultural universities?

Genetically modified foods or other new agricultural technologies?



India Food Production (Total and Per Capita)Growth Rate 1961-2007: 2.8% - 2.1% = 0.7 %

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1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010

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Computer Technology in India

• 1950s: Tata Institute of Fundamental Research built the first computer in India

• India was not far from the forefront of technology• Computer development stalled in the mid-1960s

after the wars, paucity of funds, and the self-sufficiency drive

• Advent of the Internet, and Y2K-driven demand allowed Indian entrepreneurs to build service businesses


Economic Liberalization• Since the beginning its policy of economic liberalization in

1991, India has dismantled some of the pre-existing barriers to innovation

• The scope of business decisions that can be undertaken without official sanction has expanded, although the number of permits needed to start a new business in India still remains high (about 60th in the world; HK is #1)

• With manufacturing sector tightly controlled by government, availability of the Internet made it possible for entrepreneurs to innovate by flying under the regulatory radar by creating a software and business process engineering industry in the service sector

• This sector has consumed, and benefited greatly from, the existing educational capacity but has contributed little towards building additional educational capacity


Deregulation and Growth

• With the creation of a substantial educated middle class, the realization has grown that, with proper education, India’s people become a source of its strength, not a burden

• Translating this new attitude into reality has lagged, especially in education of the rural poor, and in attracting enough high quality talent into teaching and scholarship

• Without quality education of the rural poor, the vast potential of India’s human capital remains untapped

• Without enough talent in scholarship, India remains at serious disadvantage in its ability to instruct and inspire its young, and to conduct leading edge research and generate new ideas and technologies to address its challenges


Levels of Knowledge

• India exhibits a great deal of confidence in its technological capabilities today

• Confidence is a big plus, but misplaced confidence is catastrophic

• Understanding the distinction among various levels of knowledge is critical


Knowledge and Status

• Consider five levels of knowledge about a car– The owner– The driver– The mechanic– The manufacturer (production engineer)– The Designer (engineer)– The inventor

• To a layman, a person driving or riding in the back seat of his car is knowledgeable

• But owning a car requires little knowledge, driving requires only a little more

• What is the link between level of knowledge and social status in various societies?


Global Competition

• Global competition will not allow India to sustain this strategy for long

• Many countries around the world are preparing their educational systems and grooming large number of talented young with high quality education and promoting research to attract the “brain” industries

• Research means original work—discoveries, inventions, writing or design that has never been done before

• I would not be surprised if the “brain” industries move to these countries if they do not find labor of sufficient quality and in sufficient quantity to fill their needs

• The same global competition that has benefited India greatly could prove to be its undoing


An Inconvenient Truth

• An inconvenient truth: India lags in innovation, is falling further behind—a largely unrecognized crisis

• Research and scholarship lies at the narrow top of the educational pyramid (like a seed farm at the top of the pyramid of agriculture)– 20 million children in schools/year– 10 million in high school/year– 4 million in college/per year

• Only 16,000 PhDs/per year


Harvesting the Crop Planted Long Ago

• India’s rapid economic growth today is the result of the investments made in education during the past fifty years

• Today, most of the system is focused on educating bachelor’s degree holders to meet the current demand

• Few of the top students in India are attracted to careers of scholarship

• With its inability to attract even the top one percent of each year’s class into PhD programs, the quality of instruction and scholarship in Indian higher education is in a steep decline


Planting the Seeds

• India is enjoying the fruit of the trees planted long ago• Is not planting enough new trees• Unless India invests heavily into research scholarship

and doctoral education today (as US, Europe and China do), the quality of its higher education will continue to decline with serious consequences for its economy

• There is evidence that this decline has been continuing for some time

• The technology boom may lose steam as Indian firms move their operations to other countries where they can find well-educated employees in large numbers


Sharply Rising Salaries Suggest Shortages

India Has Highest Salary Hikes in Asia By THE ASSOCIATED PRESSFiled at 5:41 a.m. ET, December 1, 2006• NEW DELHI (AP) -- Salaries in India rose faster than

any other major country in Asia this year, even as companies across the region remain under pressure to retain talent and spend more to compensate employees, a global resource company has said.

• An annual survey by Hewitt Associates revealed that salaries in India rose an average of 13.8 percent in 2006, with midlevel technical employees and supervisors getting the biggest hikes, the company said in a statement Thursday.

http://www.nytimes.com/redirect/marketwatch/redirect.ctx?MW=http://custom.marketwatch.com/custom/nyt-com/html-companyprofile.asp&symb=HEW


Real Pay

• Senior managers in Mumbai and São Paulo are better paid than their counterparts in New York or London, once the cost of living is taken into account, according to Hay Group, a human-resources firm. The calculations include the cost of rent, which is punishingly high in some financial centres. Sweden's heavy taxes leave top managers in Stockholm worse off, in real terms, than their peers in Shanghai or Budapest.

• Aug 10th 2006 From The Economist print edition



World University Rankings(Each column subsumes the previous column: a university in the top 20

is also in the top 50, 100 and 200.)

Population(millions)

Top 20 Top 50 Top 100 Top 200

China 1, 330 0 1 2 6

Hong Kong 7 0 3 3 5

India 1,173 0 0 0 2*

Japan 127 0 3 6 11

Other Asia 1,270 0 2 5 8

Asia sub-total 3,907 0 9 16 32

Australia 22 1 6 8 9

Canada 34 1 3 4 11

New Zealand 4 0 0 1 3

U.K. 61 5 8 18 29

U.S. 310 13 18 32 54

Total in this table**

4,338 20 44 79 138

*IIT Bombay and IIT Delhi.**The totals in the bottom row are lower than the top row because many universities located outside the listed countries are not included in the table.Sources: Population: CIA World Factbook (https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/index.html accessed on May 25, 2010); University rankings: Times Higher Education –QS, (http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/ accessed May 26, 2010).

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/index.html%20accessed%20on%20May%2025

http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/


Selected Country-wise Statistics of Number of Universities Ranked

among Globally High-ranked Universities Rank Country Top 20 Top 100 Top 200 Top 300 Top 400 Top 500 1 USA 17 53 90 119 140 168 2 UK 2 11 19 30 36 40 3 Japan 1 5 9 13 24 34 4 Germany - 5 16 23 33 40 5 Canada - 4 8 17 19 23 6 France - 4 8 13 19 21 7 Sweden - 4 5 9 11 11 8 Switzerland - 3 6 6 7 8 9 Netherlands - 2 7 9 11 12 10 Australia - 2 6 9 11 14 12 Israel - 1 4 4 6 7 17 Russia - 1 1 1 2 2 19 China - - 2 6 15 18 21 South

Korea - - 1 2 5 8

23 Singapore - - 1 1 2 2 25 New

Zealand - - - 1 2 5

33 India - - - - 1* 3**


World University Rankings Population

(millions) Top 20 Top 50 Top 100 Top 200

China 1,321 1 2 2 6 Hong Kong 7 0 2 3 4 India 1,169 0 0 2* 3** Japan 128 1 2 3 11 Other Asia 1,250 1 1 3 9 Sub-total 3,875 3 7 13 33 Australia 21 1 6 7 13 Canada 33 0 3 3 7 New Zealand

4 0 1 2 2

U.K. 61 4 8 16 30 U.S. 303 11 22 33 55 Total 6,396 20 50 100 200 Source: from the survey reported in The Times Higher Education Supplement, October 6, 2006. Each column subsumes the previous column: a university in the top 20 is also in the top 50, 100 and 200. * IITs, IIMs ** IITs, IIMs, JNU


The world’s top 200 universities

2009 Rank

2008 Rank

Name Country Peer review

Score (40%) Recruiter

Review (10%)

Int’l Faculty Score (5%)

Int’l Student Score (5%)

Faculty Student Score (20%)

Citations Faculty Score (20%)

Overall Score

1 1 Harvard University US 100 100 98 100 85 78 100.0

2 3 Cambridge University UK 100 100 400 89 98 96 99.6

3 2 Yale University US 100 99 100 94 85 77 99.1

49 56 Tsinghua University China 98 83 95 34 45 34 78.9

17 16 Australian National University Australia 100 91 75 74 99 92 90.5

30 30 National University of Singapore Singapore 100 96 40 75 100 100 84.3

22 19 Tokyo University Japan 100 97 98 70 28 42 88.9

18 20 McGill University Canada 100 97 92 61 67 95 90.4

52 50 Peking University China 100 93 89 35 24 30 78.4

24 26 University of Hong Kong Hong Kong

96 89 87 56 100 95 87.5

163 174 Indian Institute of Technology

Bombay India 76 79 43 45 16 13 58.6

181 154 Indian Institute of Technology Delhi India 68 81 46 48 15 13 56.4

Source: Times Higher Education, (http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/ accessed May 26, 2010).


The world’s top 200 universities

2006 rank

2005 rank

Name Country

Peer review score (40%)

Recruiter review (10%)

Int'l faculty score (5%)

Int'l students

score (5%)

Faculty /

student score (20%)

Citations /

faculty score (20%)

Overall score

1 1 Harvard University

US 93 100 15 25 56 55 100.0

2 3 Cambridge University

UK 100 79 58 43 64 17 96.8

4= 7 Yale University

US 72 81 45 26 93 24 89.2

14 15 Beijing University

China 70 55 5 11 69 2 67.9

16 23 Australian National University

Australia 72 30 48 33 38 13 64.8

19= 22 National University of Singapore

Singapore 70 44 82 47 22 8 63.1

19= 16 Tokyo University

Japan 72 29 8 10 35 27 63.1

21 24 McGill University

Canada 57 61 31 33 52 10 62.3

28 62 Tsing Hua University

China 45 34 22 9 84 1 56.1

33= 41 University of Hong Kong

Hong Kong

48 40 84 27 46 6 54.8

57 50 Indian Institutes of Technology

India 45 34 0 1 27 2 44.5

68 84 Indian Institutes of Management

India 31 46 0 10 60 2 41.6

183= 192 Jawaharlal India 32 14 2 6 27 4 29.3


DOCTORATE DEGREES AWARDED (India/US)(Sources: Universities Grants Commission and National Science Foundation)

Field of Study 2002 2003** 2004**

Arts 4,524/ 5,029 6,144/ 5,018 6,774/ 5,013

Science 3,955/ 19,505 4,976/ 19,995 5,408/ 20,497

Commerce/ Management 728 954 1042

Education 4,20/ 6,491 527/ 6,638 593/ 6,633

Engineering/Technology 734/ 5,077 833/ 5,279 908/ 5,775

Medicine 219// 1,653 246/ 1,633 268/ 1,719

Agriculture 838 1012 1048

Veterinary Science 110 136 189

Law 110 146 129

Others* 336 444 743

Total 11,974/ 39,953 15,328/ 40,740 16,602/ 42,117

*Others includes Music/Fine Arts, Library Science, Physical education, Journalism, Social work etc.** Provisional


PhD Degrees Awarded in Science and Technology


TABLE 1. US Doctorates awarded, by field of study: 1996–2005

Field 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005

All fields 42,437

42,535

42,637

41,092

41,361

40,651

39,953

40,740

42,117

43,354

Science and engineering 27,240

27,229

27,273

25,931

25,966

25,496

24,582

25,274

26,272

27,974

Science 20,931

21,115

21,352

20,601

20,643

19,988

19,505

19,995

20,497

21,570

Biological/agricultural sciences 6,842 6,866 6,955 6,646 6,890 6,668 6,699 6,753 6,984 7,406

Agricultural sciences 1,118 1,078 1,109 1,065 1,037 975 1,009 1,060 1,045 1,038

Biological sciences 5,724 5,788 5,846 5,581 5,853 5,693 5,690 5,693 5,939 6,368

Earth, atmospheric, and ocean sciences 724 804 765 723 694 660 689 683 686 713

Mathematics/computer sciences 2,042 2,032 2,104 1,939 1,910 1,832 1,726 1,859 2,024 2,339

Physical sciences 3,826 3,746 3,800 3,562 3,378 3,364 3,185 3,289 3,338 3,647

Psychology 3,494 3,557 3,673 3,668 3,616 3,385 3,197 3,273 3,327 3,327

Social sciences 4,003 4,110 4,055 4,063 4,155 4,079 4,009 4,138 4,138 4,138

Engineering 6,309 6,114 5,921 5,330 5,323 5,508 5,077 5,279 5,775 6,404

Non-science and engineering 15,197

15,306

15,364

15,161

15,395

15,155

15,371

15,466

15,845

15,380

Education 6,785 6,573 6,569 6,546 6,432 6,332 6,491 6,638 6,633 6,229

Health 1,324 1,421 1,499 1,407 1,591 1,541 1,653 1,633 1,719 1,777

Humanities 4,711 5,035 5,117 5,035 5,213 5,160 5,029 5,018 5,013 4,947

Professional/other/unknown 2,377 2,277 2,179 2,173 2,159 2,122 2,198 2,177 2,480 2,427


Field 2005 2004 2003 2002 2001 2000

哲学 Philosophy 396 366 323 263 218 199

经济学 Economics 1379 1254 1040 855 621 514

法学 Law 1038 906 683 615 448 330

教育学 Education 319 274 276 197 172 144

文学 Literature 976 955 829 648 491 387

历史学 History 473 449 428 311 272 261

理学 Science 5083 4213 3580 2813 2655 2306

工学 Engeering 9126 7797 6242 4968 4341 4484

农学 Agreculture 1102 899 742 648 536 462

医学 Life science 4401 3714 3073 2444 2100 1758

军事学 Military Science 228 161 98 91 61 65

管理学 Management 1660 1431 1095 765 481 410

专业学位Professional

Degree 211 174 216 88 69 63

Sum 26392 22593 18625 14706 12465 11383

PHDs Granted In Chinese Universities


Estimated Demand for PhDs(in Higher Education)


Enrolment and Teachers in Higher Education

Gross Enrollment Ratio (Relevant age)

1995 2000

Teachers per million population

1995 2000

North America

61.7 80.7 131 2980 3612 121.2

Asia/Oce. 28.8 42.1 146 2162 3205 148.2

Europe 32.3 50.7 157 2042 2393 117.1

Arab 11.5 14.9 130 653 730 111.8

Latin/Car. 15.7 19.4 124 1422 1608 113.1

India 6 7.2 120 436 434 99.6

World Total

12.5 17.4 139 964 1084 112.5

Source: World Education Report, 1995 and 2000 (UNESCO)


Figure 1: Revenue from Students at 39 US Universities (as percent of total)(Source: Prepared by author from data gathered by author from university annual reports for 2008-9)

0.0%

10.0%

20.0%

30.0%

40.0%

50.0%

60.0%

70.0%

80.0%

90.0%

Stu

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t R

even

ues

(P

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nt)


The Structure of Innovation/Research in India

• Structural obstacles to promote research and innovation in India• In the early years after independence, India set up specialized

research organizations which initially attracted highly talented scientists and engineers to conduct research

• These organizations were well financed by government, and had little contact with education, industry or the market (business was a dirty word in socialist vocabulary)

• With only a few exceptions, when isolated from the fresh air and inconvenient discipline of the market and contact with the young minds, most of the laboratories gradually fell into bureaucratic routine, promoting largely by seniority, spending much and producing little research (India hardly appears in the world research map)

• The civil services that run these organizations, e.g., Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, control much of government budget for promoting innovation


Policy of Separating Research from Education

• Second, most of the government budget for innovation was soon captured by these organizations, leaving little for the universities

• Third, isolation of research from the education of the young • Universities reduced to classrooms for instruction and issuing

diplomas• Starved of talent in their faculty ranks, funding for innovation, and

research culture. In this university environment, even talented students could have no exposure to research, and had no opportunities for even accidental discovery of their affinity for innovation.

• The few PhD programs that existed could not attract talented students

• Most members of faculty could not do or supervise research • The quality of people entering the PhD program lowered the regard

in which academia were held, and this vicious cycle of mutual reinforcement continues to this day


Specialization• A fourth consequence was that these research institutes were given

narrowly defined charters and did not see the exciting interfaces of disciplines where innovation occurs as their focus

• Each institute, defined by its own agenda or discipline, was bound by its own charter and its organization did not facilitate or encourage casual interaction with ideas from outside that may occur in broader university settings

– You can set up an institute to conduct research on candles and will never discover electricity

– You can set up an institute to conduct research on horse carts and will never invent a car

• The education system in India has also suffered from the same limitation imposed on them through narrow super-specialization

• Importance to diploma, not to the creativity of a young mind• Importance to administrative authority, not to originality of thinking

and power of ideas– Name an Indian scientist who is known for science, not authority


Keeping Abreast Is Not Enough

• To lead India needs to seriously rethink the future of innovation and original research in the Indian economy


Creator of Innovation

• To become a brain-power of the first rank, India will have to move beyond adopting and adapting the inventions created abroad, and become a major creator of innovation

• The Grain Revolution in agriculture originated in U.S. and Mexico, and even its adaptation in India needed huge investments in irrigation, fertilizer plants, high yielding seed production, extension services, and serious political commitment

• The “Brain Revolution” will need similar investments in seed farms of knowledge to attract the best and the brightest of each graduating class to careers of research scholarship and instruction


India Needs Domestic Capacity for Scholarship and Innovation

• For India to become a “brain bank,” to use a popular phrase, it will have to become a source for first class scholarship where new theories, theorems, products, and ideas are generated for itself and the rest of the world. In other words, India must create, today, the seed farms for scholarship

• From all indications, the quality as well as quantity of high-talent young people being attracted to scholarly careers is too small today to support such dreams for the future

• Even US universities which used to attract a large number of PhD candidates from India, the number has dropped as the economic reforms made better employment opportunities available to them

• India as well as China is so large that neither can depend on foreign universities to train enough PhD for it


Innovation Needs Seed Farms

• A farmer saves some of his best grain as seed to plant the next crop.

• While eating an extra mouthful is satisfying today, it is not worth the risk of having nothing on the table next year.

• What is true of agriculture is also true of society and education, except education requires us to think of much longer generational cycles, not just annual crop cycles.


Long Way to Go

• Can India have the kind of future it dreams of if she fails to attract the highest level of talent into universities to teach, and think of new ideas in science, technology, social science, arts and the humanities?

• Who was the first in the world to think and to make the things we see and use?

• The distance India has to travel to stand among the countries which lead the world in brain power becomes immediately obvious.


Attracting Talent to Scholarship• Next ask: what were the characteristics of the people who

made the inventions that have transformed our lives? If these were the people with high brain power, surely India has plenty of those

• Again, look around the class room in an Indian university. Now ask: how many of them are, or will be, devoted to invention and scholarship? It might be easier to answer the question: how many of India’s brightest are NOT pursuing MBA or software engineering? The answer can sometimes be disappointing

• India cannot aspire to the future as an advanced society without large numbers of original thinkers to inspire the new generations of students, new ideas, original scientific research, development of technology, and producing fine arts and literatures that great minds create and appreciate


What Should India Do?

• Solutions will have to be found urgently, and from within India– No solutions suggested from outside would be acceptable to a

proud society– Proposals from outside attract immediate attention to why they

would not work– Nor are they likely to work

• If the problem is considered important, it must be addressed from within by carefully deliberation among top policy makers and experts, recognizing the serious conflicts of interest that exist at all levels (profit-making institutions owned by businessmen and legislators)


Concluding Remarks

• Conversations with the department heads, deans, vice chancellors and senior civil servants, even some politicians, in India reveal following adjectives for the current status of scholarly innovation in India:

• Crisis• Grim• Vicious cycle• Broken educational infrastructure• Needs outside intervention• These concerns are buried under the excitement

generated by the recent high rate of economic growth


Solution from Within• Outside solutions will not work• Grain revolution was forced by the grim food supply situation in the 1960s,

made possible by admirable and visionary political, financial, technological and administrative leadership which set the national pride aside

• The computer age in India had an early start, faltered with the lack of funding and leadership in the sixties, and was revived by Internet, Y2K, globalization, and government indifference in the nineties

• Liberalization of the Indian economy in 1991 was forced by external financial constraints and made possible by the leadership of Prime Minister Rao and then Finance Minister Singh

• India’s political, academic, business and administrative leadership is capable of visionary leadership to create capacity for innovation at the apex of India’s system of education, scholarship, research and development, and arts

• India will have to find the internal strength to deal with this crisis, as it has done many times in the past

• The solution lies within• What can you do?


Care in Building Seed Farms

• Developing the culture of innovation• Long gestation period• Social acceptance of, and respect for, scholarship to

attract talent• Large financial resources necessary but not sufficient• There is no mechanical method for evaluating innovation

and talent—achievement in research is easy to fake, especially when the people around you cannot judge what is new, interesting and important

• Unbalanced emphasis on financial incentives for research only induces fraud and wasted resources


The State of Innovation in India• the engine of innovation is working well in business, and it could

work even better• Mixed record in education • In research and scholarship, the pulse is weak• India needs to consider removing infrastructural and many

regulatory barriers to innovation as well as introduce effective controls on anticompetitive practices in business

• The education sector, especially at PhD level, needs major overhaul a new framework for management and regulation of university education– Focused on control and does not encourage creative minds of students

and faculty to innovate• To stoke the engine of innovation in India, major segments of the

research sector of the economy can be usefully integrated with the industry and education system

• More thinking, less rote memorization and vocational training


Will They Ask Themselves?

• Students: Who would I want to be taught by?• Businessmen: How do I get technologies, products and

services to compete against the best in the world?• Civil Servants: How do I deploy scarce budgets for

maximum advantage of society?• Public men and women: Will the next generation thank

me for our foresight, as the present generation thanks Nehru and Azad for theirs?

• Educators: How do I deliver to earn the resources and respect of society?


I Ask You

• You know more about India than I do

• You may not reach the same answers as those I have in mind

• All I ask is that you arrive at your own answers to these important questions

Thank You

[email protected]

www.som.yale.edu/faculty/sunder

mailto:[email protected]

http://www.som.yale.edu/faculty/sunder

State of Innovation and Higher Education in India: Will It Derail India’s Progress?

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