Innovation is the key wordInnovation is an important word. If any country wants to advance it should be innovative. We find scholars all over the world today discussing their innovative approaches to connecting real world problems to real world profits. And it's not just well-meaning and ambitious professionals who are into the 'I' word. Whether its car manufacturers advertising their newest model, politicians in search of a new mantra to sway their avid, hapless electorates, or governments wishing to project themselves as visionaries bustling into the future, innovation is the new holy grail.
In India too we have seen an innovation revolution - we are now something of an innovation society. We've seen the creation, in breathless sequence, of the National Innovation Foundation, the National Innovation Council, the launch of a National Innovation Initiative, an Innovation Grid, Innovation Awards, and of course the National Innovation Act - designed to oversee the creation of special innovation parks, zones, and presumably minds.
But is innovation-speak anything more than the latest verbal tic of business school babble? No! In fact, the foreigners are mighty impressed by our achievements in India - and want to know policy recipes, if any, that they could adopt.
And it is true that the Indian experience does have some striking zones of achievement. The dense networks of pharma research and labs in Hyderabad, information technology in Bangalore, as well as the space and nuclear sectors are all striking examples of Indian innovation.
As far as innovation is concerned, there is no better example of this than the success of Bangalore. It is usually but too simply ascribed to the ingenuity and innovation of technically skilled private entrepreneurs, who suddenly came into their own in the late 1980s. Of course it has in part been that. But what enabled that city to become the engine of so much of India's recent innovation was actually investments in research institutions, precision industries, and pure science that goes back at least to the 1950s - and to institutions, like the National Institute of Science. It was that which bestowed on the city a critical mass of fine minds - able to respond to an opportunity when they sensed it in the air. On reconstructing this history one realizes that innovation is much more about the slow build-up of pure research, than about the creation of task forces looking for quick fixes. For innovation to bloom, you need many branches, and roots that stretch deep.
One wonders if we are following the right path in building innovations into the worlds of our intellect and production. For that to happen, better than dotting the country with numerous mediocre universities, we might be better advised to invest in the construction of a few large and expensive classical research universities - with their autonomy guaranteed through the creation of endowments that cut them free from the government and the state.
Innovation requires long-term venture capital - and the autonomous research university remains the best example of the success of such a strategy. That's what the universities of Europe did in the 19th century, the universities of America in the 20th. Can India do the same in the 21st century?
In India too we have seen an innovation revolution - we are now something of an innovation society. We've seen the creation, in breathless sequence, of the National Innovation Foundation, the National Innovation Council, the launch of a National Innovation Initiative, an Innovation Grid, Innovation Awards, and of course the National Innovation Act - designed to oversee the creation of special innovation parks, zones, and presumably minds.
But is innovation-speak anything more than the latest verbal tic of business school babble? No! In fact, the foreigners are mighty impressed by our achievements in India - and want to know policy recipes, if any, that they could adopt.
And it is true that the Indian experience does have some striking zones of achievement. The dense networks of pharma research and labs in Hyderabad, information technology in Bangalore, as well as the space and nuclear sectors are all striking examples of Indian innovation.
As far as innovation is concerned, there is no better example of this than the success of Bangalore. It is usually but too simply ascribed to the ingenuity and innovation of technically skilled private entrepreneurs, who suddenly came into their own in the late 1980s. Of course it has in part been that. But what enabled that city to become the engine of so much of India's recent innovation was actually investments in research institutions, precision industries, and pure science that goes back at least to the 1950s - and to institutions, like the National Institute of Science. It was that which bestowed on the city a critical mass of fine minds - able to respond to an opportunity when they sensed it in the air. On reconstructing this history one realizes that innovation is much more about the slow build-up of pure research, than about the creation of task forces looking for quick fixes. For innovation to bloom, you need many branches, and roots that stretch deep.
One wonders if we are following the right path in building innovations into the worlds of our intellect and production. For that to happen, better than dotting the country with numerous mediocre universities, we might be better advised to invest in the construction of a few large and expensive classical research universities - with their autonomy guaranteed through the creation of endowments that cut them free from the government and the state.
Innovation requires long-term venture capital - and the autonomous research university remains the best example of the success of such a strategy. That's what the universities of Europe did in the 19th century, the universities of America in the 20th. Can India do the same in the 21st century?
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