India has attained the third position in terms of publications and it now features among the top 50 innovative economies globally as per the Global Innovation Index (GII), placing it ahead of many developed and developing countries.
The combination of scientific excellence and innovation has been possible through encouraging investments in scientific activities, infrastructure as well as manpower development.
The implementation of NIDHI has nurtured 3681 startups under incubation through the network of around 150 Incubators created by DST, generated 1992 intellectual property. Further, in the last five years, jobs generated in the form of direct employment were 65,864 and Rs 27,262 crores of economic wealth.
The start-up India mission has given a boost to convert patentable innovative ideas into start-ups levitating India into the country among those with the highest number of start-ups.
The number of publications has increased exponentially over the last 10 years. According to data from the US agency, the National Science Foundation (NSF), India is currently in third place, only behind China and the United States.
The country now has a stronger manpower base, with India’s researchers per million population increased to 255 in 2017 from 218 in 2015. The breeding ground of this escalating scientific research lay in the country’s 993 Universities/Deemed Universities, 127 institutes of national importance, and 39,931 colleges across the length and breadth of the country, which nurtures human resources that will take forward the scientific and technological legacy of the nation.
