India research funding shock: 76% say industry rarely supports R&D, reveals NITI Aayog-backed EoDR survey report

A first-of-its-kind Ease of Doing Research (EoDR) survey was conducted in mid-2025 across India’s leading R&D institutes under a NITI Aayog-led initiative. The survey report, accessed by ET, highlights the many pain points the Indian researcher faces –– from the long road to proposal approvals to the dearth of post doctoral fellowships, the career break impact on the small pool of women researchers and the missing private sector/industry funding.

The survey, which received 878 responses from fellows of Indian National Science Academy (INSA), New Delhi and National Academy of Sciences (NASI) and central universities and institutes including IITs and NITs, across various designations, covered 24.5% women and 75.5% men.

Take a look at what the key findings of the survey:


Fund Source: 52.5% reported receiving funding from DST; 37.7% from Anusandhan National Research Foundation (ANRF) and 30.6% from institutional funding. The share of private funding is only 13%, in contrast to leading R&D economies such as US, South Korea, Germany.

Extra Mural Funding (Central): 59.2% said the process “involves considerable effort and is highly competitive”; 15% said EMF is ‘rarely accessible’.

Adequacy Test: 39% respondents found funding from government sources to support their research ‘partially sufficient’; 31% considered it adequate; For institutional funding, 37% described it as insufficient; 27% consider it only partially sufficient.

Missing in action: 68% indicated that funding from industry and CSR channels were not available to them; 73% reported no access to funding from private foundations; 60% said international funding opportunities were not available to support their research.

Industrial funding: 73% respondents highlighted flexibility in fund utilisation; 58.7% talked of simpler administrative procedures; 48.6% acknowledged better availability of financial resources; 41.3% cited greater autonomy in recruiting suitable personnel for their projects.

YET…76.4% reported that industry rarely supports R&D projects in their respective disciplines. 45.9% held that the industry’s emphasis on rapid, market-ready outcome places pressure on researchers to deliver quick results, which may not always be scientifically feasible or reliable. 23% pointed to the absence of standardised IPR-sharing mechanisms as a key barrier that limits effective collaboration with industry.

Matter of match: Despite the challenges associated with funding from government agencies, 62.5%, expressed a preference for government funding over industrial or private funding especially researchers engaged in basic and fundamental research; 74% favoured it over industrial funding. Those involved in applied and translational research were evenly divided in their preference, indicating a potential mismatch between research type and funding preference

Long road from proposal to disbursement

The Proposal: An average respondent takes two months to prepare a proposal, has to wait 7-15 months for approval/rejection, another 6 months to even two years for sanctioning and disbursement only five months later-- leaving researchers with around 7 months or so to spend the amount. In case it lapses, another 4 months go by for it to come back in their accounts. Add to that, it takes around 7 months on average to two years to close the project and receive complete funding even after project objectives are met and documents submitted.

Procurement plan: 12.6% of respondents said procuring research equipment takes more than a year, while 39% indicated that it takes between 6 months and a year.

The Spending catch: 39.9% respondents unable to spend the disbursed amount within the year with 51% of the respondents attributing it to delay in getting the sanctioned amount and 20.6% citing internal administrative reasons.

Education

Post-Doc problem: 33.8% of respondents said their institutions did not have a dedicated funding scheme for Ph.D and post-doctoral candidates; 25.4% reported dedicated funding schemes only for the Ph.D. Overall, dedicated funding schemes for only 1.4% post doctoral scholars.

Scholarship on wait: It takes an average of 3.5 months for scholars to get scholarship amount from the government; 50% faced delays stretching to nearly a year.

Female researchers

Women in STEM: 93.5% of respondents had not taken a career break. Of those who did, 83% were women, far higher than their overall representation in the R&D workforce.

Female researchers reported greater success (56%) in finding competent collaborators compared to their male counterparts(44%).