The past week marked the time of the year when the most extraordinary achievements in science, economics, humanitarianism, and literature are recognised and awarded the Nobel Prize. Instituted in 1901 as per the will of Swedish scientist and inventor Alfred Nobel, the prizes have since long marked the pinnacle of human endeavour across popular culture.
Curiously enough, India, a nation that boasts of the fourth–largest economy in the world and is home to about 1.5 billion people, has been unable to bag a single Nobel Prize since nearly a decade and has remained dry of any in sciences since independence.
Out of the total 1,026 prizes handed out to date, India’s tally remains a dismal five. Probables float every year as the Indian community watches with hopeful eyes, only to be met with disappointment. While it is easy, as the ritual has been, to put the blame on Eurocentrism or some bias and while it may not be completely without merits, yet a deeper malaise lies beneath.
Fundamentally flawed
It is no secret that prizes like the Nobel, or its counterparts in different fields such as the Godel Prize in theoretical computer science or the Abel Prize in mathematics, tend to favour fundamental research over applied topics. For instance, every three out of four Nobels in Physics have gone to fundamental sciences instead of inventions. And rightfully so, as it is fundamental research that truly advances humanity’s horizons and forms the foundations over which our society’s socio-technological prowess lies. Secondly, prizes like the Nobel act as reward and recognition for arenas that suffer from lower monetary incentives compared to industry standards.
The Indian system is rigged against the very idea of basic sciences and fundamental research. Offerings of high quality education in the fields is limited to Centrally Funded Technical Institutions (CFTIs), Indian Institutes of Science Education Research (IISERs), and the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), and certain specialised institutions including the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR) and Harish-Chandra Research Institute (HRI), which contribute nearly 70% of the total research output. The general public mindset is heavily skewed toward technical and professional education degrees while basic sciences are seen merely as a means to obtain graduation certificates and open doors to unrelated career paths.
Autonomy and funding of fundamental research is another major challenge. While funding flows, to a large extent, from the government, autonomy of such institutions is stifled by standardised regulations of the UGC or government research institutions, most of which are outdated or driven by political expediency. The Indian psyche should also give a thought as to how many enthusiastic kids harbouring the dream to become scientists and fundamental researchers in their childhood end up in nondescript technical and managerial institutions later.
The crumbling fortresses
The rapid decline of science departments at state universities is a classic challenge in furthering science in India. On seeing the sorry state of such departments today, one would be surprised to know that the Raman Effect, the only Indian scientific achievement to win a Nobel, was discovered while Raman was a faculty member at the University of Calcutta in 1928. Up the hills in Uttarakhand, Kumaun University used to boast of stalwarts like physicist DD Pant and KS Valdiya, the renowned geologist who rediscovered the Saraswati paleochannels. In the gangetic plains, Allahabad University stood as a centre of excellence, hosting figures like scientist Meghnad Saha.
These universities today are a mere shadow of their glorious days, deprived of both funds and faculties. Most designated researchers don’t possess a doctorate or any alternative research training. Out of nearly 3.5 lakh faculty members, only about 60 per cent have a doctorate. While colleges of the University of Delhi have flagged issues concerning shortage of funds, half of the state universities are utilising less than 50 per cent of the grants allotted, courtesy managerial incompetency and lack of sheer will.
Provincial public universities have shown excellent results in scientific research across the globe, with the University of Toronto having 13 Nobel laureates associated with it. Similar success stories have been seen across the European Union. As the aggregate enrollment in Bachelor of Science (BSc) courses in India reached nearly 50 lakh in 2021-22, it becomes clear that strong decentralised academic institutions are imperative to accommodate and further the march toward a stronger research environment.
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Quantity over quality
Peter Higgs, who shared the 2013 Nobel Prize in Physics with Francois Englert, had said that he wouldn’t be “productive enough” for today’s academic system. The problems Higgs highlighted, one of disproportionate focus on numbers and indices rather than novelty of research, has been a longstanding one in academia, but has gripped India stronger than others. While publishing a substantial number of papers in reputed journals is no mean feat and may serve as a good proxy for research efforts and excellence, a blind rush toward garnering citations often lands the ecosystem in a mess.
For instance, India produced nearly 1.3 million academic papers in 2017-2022, ranking fourth globally. However, a closer look showed that the average citation count per paper was nearly half that of China, placing India at the ninth place in citation count. Two additional factors compound the problem further. First is the issue of fraudulent citations or citation rings wherein mutual citations or irrelevant citations are used to drive up citation counts. Many Indian academicians, including the ones at prestigious CFTIs and universities, are complicit in this phenomenon and cannot be named due to privacy concerns.
The second challenge is the quality of papers and journals published from India. It is extremely concerning that Indian academia has been unable to produce a single journal of consequence amongst the global community in scientific or economic arenas. For instance, the Indian Journal of Physics, started by CV Raman in 1926, has degraded to a Q3 journal, with economic journals like the Indian Economic Review meeting the same fate.
Adding the final nail in the coffin is the fact that India ranks among the top countries when it comes to retractions, a proxy for academic fraud. Nearly 9 per cent of the researchers boasting of a Top 2% credential by Stanford in India were found to have retracted one or multiple papers, highest amongst any country.
Money matters
India’s research spending as a percentage of GDP remains dismally low at 0.65 per cent, compared to the US at 3.42 per cent. In absolute terms, this entails a net spending of roughly 40 times lower than the largest contributor to Nobel Prize winning research. Out of this pool, public funding accounts for 63.6 per cent while the private sector industry contributions are only 36.4 per cent. Nearly half of the government grants are utilised by government agencies including DRDO, DoS, DAE, and ICAR. Higher Educational Institutions, responsible for carrying out fundamental research, utilize only 8.8 per cent of the share.
To compare, the annual public funding of all the IITs combined in FY 2021-22 was Rs 8,132 crore, a figure almost four times lower than the annual revenue of the global leader in Nobels, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), which stood at nearly $4 billion in 2021.
Funding crunches lead to lower quality and quantity of research infrastructure. For instance, India has only six supercomputers among the world’s Top 500 non-distributed computing devices against US’s 175 and China’s 45. This has resulted in longer wait times and slower progress in theoretical research at leading institutions.
Average stipends and salaries have taken a larger hit in India with figures falling abysmally behind global standards. Doctoral stipends range from €1,600-2,000 in the European Union and $2,500-3,000 in the US, while hovering at a meager Rs 31,000-37,000 in India, granted through the JRF scheme of the UGC. While the Prime Minister’s Research Fellowship (PMRF) has been a saving grace, the scheme is marked by exclusions, with compensation below industry standards. Salaries of researchers entering institutional academia fare no better with compensations ranging at only one-fifth of their counterparts in the US.
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Marching ahead
Not all is gloom and despair in India’s Nobel story. The government has shown a renewed interest in reviving the research ecosystem on the dual fronts of planning and investments. Focussed initiatives in high powered sectors that seek to aid both applied and fundamental research, including wider schemes such as the National Quantum Mission (NQM) and specific projects including the India-based Neutrino Observatory and the PIP-II Particle Accelerator, are a healthy start. The Anusandhan National Research Foundation, set up under an Act of Parliament, is set to provide a clear roadmap and monitoring mechanism for planning and funding of key research projects in the nation.
Recent Nobels have been marked by significant industry-academia collaborations. The 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry marked the direct entry of mega technology giants into the race, with Demis Hassabis and John Jumper from DeepMind winning the prize. The 2025 Nobel Prize in Physics saw similar scenes with one of the three laureates, Michel Devoret, being the chief scientist at Google’s Quantum AI lab.
With a dedicated pool of Rs 1 lakh crore earmarked for supporting R&D efforts in industry, the Indian government is making efforts to develop similar synergies in the country. Research parks have popped up in IITs, including IIT Kanpur and Madras, to foster bonds between institutions and industry players.
The fuel for India’s Nobel aspirations remain threefold — strong institutions, consistently high funding, and reaping the rich demographic dividend. The present aspirational students remain the key to India’s academic future. A thoughtful move would be to mainstream key scientists and researchers in the public psyche. A certain fraction of community infrastructure and public monuments should be named after such figures and used to highlight their life and works. Such a model has been successfully implemented in Spanish cities with scientific figures finding prominence in naming of subway stations, crossroads, and scholarships, and with stories of research prowess told through subtle livery and paintings.
As India focuses on its aspirations of becoming a global economic powerhouse, it must remember that the goal remains exceedingly difficult without fundamental research. While such research may remain invisible for extended periods, it lays the requisite foundation for technological sovereignty and marks a strong Indian contribution to the greater human race in line with the nation’s historical and cultural ethos. And with this, India’s wait for the Nobel Prizes is sure to come to an end in the coming decades.
Samridh Joshi is a Senior Economist and Public Policy Consultant at Nation First Policy Research Centre (NFPRC). He is an alumnus of IIT Kanpur and UC3M Madrid. Views are personal.
(Edited by Aamaan Alam Khan)
First things first. As a society, we need to cultivate a generation of minds who are open to inquiry and reasoning. This would enable young students to learn subjects like science and math in a more sustainable manner rather than just flooding oneself with raw information which is what our schools generally expect. Consequently, those who want to make it big in theoretical research are pushed to move abroad. It’s a shame that we’ve come down to this in a matter of the past five decades even though we once had stalwarts like Prof CR Rao, Prof Mahalonibis, Prof Amal Raychaudhuri etc.
What a stupid EFFING question.Who are they gonna give it to in this environment.I can only think of a few names…
modi,amit shah,yogi,mohan bhagwat,nadda,rajnath,jaishankar and sitaraman.They are ALL” deserving candidates.”