Editorial/Opinion
India today stands at a crossroads. The country has world‑class scientific talent, globally respected institutions, and a thriving startup ecosystem. Yet, despite this abundance of intellectual capital, India struggles to convert research into real‑world products at scale. The gap between laboratory breakthroughs and market‑ready technologies—often described as the “valley of death”—remains one of the most persistent structural failures in the nation’s innovation landscape.
This challenge is not new, but it has become more urgent as India positions itself as a global manufacturing and technology hub. The problem, as highlighted in a recent analysis, is not a lack of ideas but a lack of alignment. India’s academia is designed to publish, not build. Industry wants ready‑to‑deploy solutions, not prototypes. And investors prefer proven traction over early‑stage risk. The result is a system where promising innovations routinely stall before reaching the market.
A System at War With Itself
The friction between academia and industry is widely acknowledged. As one founder of a high‑technology Indian company told Swarajya, “We have tried to work with lots of different IITs, and in most cases, there is no strong output that comes from these colleges”. This frustration is echoed across sectors that rely on deep‑tech innovation.
The incentives are misaligned at every level. Professors are rewarded for publishing papers, not building products. Startups need rapid, iterative development, not multi‑year research cycles. Government funding often stops at the prototype stage, while private capital enters only after commercial viability is proven. This leaves a dangerous gap—the “valley of death”—where most innovations fail.
Dr. Anurag Agrawal of Ashoka University describes this gap bluntly: “India has no dearth of bioscience talent, but translating research into real‑world health solutions remains a major challenge.” He argues that India must “back people, not just projects” and build systems that reward real‑world outcomes, not academic prestige.
The TRL 3 → TRL 4 Bottleneck
Innovation experts often describe India’s biggest hurdle as the transition from Technology Readiness Level (TRL) 3 to TRL 4—the point where a lab‑tested prototype must be validated in real‑world conditions. According to innovation strategist Babu Mohanan, “India doesn’t suffer from a shortage of ideas — we suffer from a shortage of products.” He adds that most innovations “never make it beyond the lab door” because the ecosystem is not designed to support the messy, expensive, iterative process of commercialization.
This is the stage where engineering talent, manufacturing partners, regulatory clarity, and patient capital must converge. In India, they rarely do.
When Alignment Happens, India Delivers
Despite these structural challenges, India has produced remarkable success stories—proof that the problem is not capability but coordination.
One of the most celebrated examples is the work of Prof. Ashok Jhunjhunwala, whose team helped reduce telephone costs from ₹40,000 to ₹10,000 by prioritizing economic feasibility alongside technological innovation. His approach—“put economics before technology”—became a model for frugal innovation and helped accelerate India’s telecom revolution.
Another example is the IIT Kanpur ventilator project. At the height of the COVID‑19 crisis, a team of researchers and engineers built a life‑saving ventilator in just 90 days. Their success demonstrated what is possible when urgency, collaboration, and institutional support align.
The IIT Madras Research Park stands as a structural example of what India needs more of. With over 900 joint industry‑academia projects completed, it has become a national benchmark for how universities can drive innovation when incentives are aligned and partnerships are intentional.
A Broader National Challenge
India’s innovation gap is not limited to academia. It is part of a larger structural issue: the country spends just 0.7% of its GDP on research and development, far below global leaders like South Korea (5.2%) and the United States (3.5%). This underinvestment has consequences. Without sustained funding, India cannot build the deep‑tech infrastructure required to compete globally.
Amitabh Kant, former CEO of NITI Aayog, argues that India must treat innovation as an endogenous driver of growth—not an afterthought. “We have not yet fully leveraged our innovation potential,” he writes, emphasizing the need for stronger industry‑academia linkages and catalytic public procurement to drive demand for homegrown technologies.
The Manufacturing Paradox
India’s manufacturing sector illustrates the paradox vividly. Walking through industrial clusters in Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, innovation expert Yogesh Pandit observes a “dichotomy” in Indian industry: entrepreneurs are hardworking, adaptive, and resilient, yet most remain stuck in the “low‑value trap,” competing on cost rather than innovation.
This is not due to lack of ambition. It is due to lack of structured pathways that help manufacturers adopt, co‑develop, or scale new technologies emerging from Indian labs.
A Civilizational Perspective
The report on your page makes a compelling historical point: India was once a civilization of creators. From the Sindhu‑Saraswati era to the Chola empire, India produced goods, technologies, and industries that shaped global trade. The challenge today is not to rediscover talent—it is to rebuild systems that allow talent to flourish.
India’s renaissance will not come from isolated breakthroughs. It will come from aligning incentives across academia, industry, and government; from funding the full lifecycle of innovation; and from building institutions that reward product creation, not just publication.
The Path Forward
Experts across the ecosystem converge on a few key solutions:
✅ 1. Reform academic incentives
Reward patents, prototypes, and industry partnerships—not just publications.
✅ 2. Strengthen industry‑academia collaboration
Create more research parks, co‑development labs, and shared infrastructure.
✅ 3. Bridge the “valley of death”
Establish dedicated TRL 3–7 funding mechanisms and product‑acceleration programs.
✅ 4. Increase national R&D spending
Move toward 2% of GDP with a focus on deep‑tech and strategic sectors.
✅ 5. Build a culture of product‑driven innovation
Encourage risk‑taking, celebrate product builders, and support long‑term innovation cycles.
Conclusion
India’s innovation story is not one of failure—it is one of untapped potential. The country has the talent, the ideas, and the ambition. What it needs now is alignment. The sparks are already visible across IITs, research parks, startups, and manufacturing clusters. With the right incentives and sustained support, India can once again become a nation that not only imagines the future but builds it.
