The Regional Innovation System: Tracing the evolution in main regional governance characteristics

 

 

M.U. Khan

 

There are 27 states in India, each governed by a Legislative Assembly (and generally having a Legislative Council). The Members of the Legislative Assembly (MLA) are elected by the people of the State. The Chief Minister is the executive head of the government elected by MLAs of the political party/coalation in majority in the Legislative Assembly.

The state government has ministries including the Ministry of Science and Technology. Almost every State has an agency that governs the scientific activities in each state, called the State Council of Science and Technology. For example, the Punjab State Council of Science and Technology functions under the aegis of the Department of Science, Technology & Environment, Punjab Government. Its purpose is to promote socioeconomic changes and environmental awareness through the application of science and technology and to bring science and technology out of the laboratories and into the life of the common man. The State Council has the responsibility to design and implement the Innovation policy.

Some of the provinces have already released their white paper on innovation policy. The Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh released a white paper on 28 February 2007 on National Science Day. It is called Madhya Pradesh Science and Technology 2007. The basic objective of this white paper is to promote basic sciences and innovative practices in the state and encourage generation, adaptation, transfer and assimilation of technology appropriate to its local needs with the help of basic, applied and developmental research.

The basic objectives of the State Councils of Science and Technology are to identify areas in which science and technology can be utilised for achieving the socio-economic objectives of the State, and in particular in resolving the problems of backwardness, unemployment and poverty in the rural areas and among the under privileged section of the society. The specific functions of the Councils are:

The Council functions through the following authorities:

The Executive Committee functions as the Executive Body of the Council for the management of its daily affairs like formulation and implementation of administrative, financial and personnel policies designed to promote scientific and technological activities.

The R&D expenditure incurred by the States increased from Rs. 3.65 billion  in 1990-91 to Rs.15.74 billion in 2000-01 and declined marginally to Rs.15.28 billion in 2002-03. The annual growth rate of the R&D expenditure in 2002-03 over 1999-00 was 5.8%. The R&D expenditure by the states accounted for 8.5% of the national R&D expenditure during 2002-03. The R&D expenditure in the states constituted only 0.07% of the GNP at current prices during 2002-03. This share has remained almost the same for the past few years.

There is a huge variation in the education expenditures across different states. There is also a large difference in the enrolment and other patterns as well as in the number of educational institutes in the states. Indeed what matters is not the amount spent by various state governments on education but its effectiveness, and this is judged by literacy rates and enrolment ratios. The per capita income of Punjab is higher than that of Kerala but it is Kerala that topped the literacy charts in the country. 

Given its huge geographic area, Uttar Pradesh has the largest number of universities, though it is Maharashtra that has the most colleges in the country. Uttar Pradesh accounts for the country’s largest number of graduates and above—around 15.2% followed by Maharashtra 13.7% and Andhra Pradesh 8.1%. Delhi has the best-qualified population, and 16% of all who live in Delhi have at least a graduate degree. At all India level, 6% of the country’s population (above the age of 10) has acquired graduate degree, and another 12% has passed class 12 and/or has a diploma.

Though Karnataka is considered to be the country’s knowledge centre, it is Andhra Pradesh that has the highest proportion of science graduates in the country. Of the 12.1 million science graduates and the diploma holders in the country, 14% are to be found in Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu is next at 11.9%, Maharashtra third at 11.1%, Uttar Pradesh fourth with 10.2% and Karnataka gets into the list next with 7.5%. Not surprisingly, Maharashtra leads in terms of stock of commerce graduates (22%) in terms of those enrolled in commerce at the graduate level, 16 % are to be found in this state. Gujarat, again expectedly, ranks second with a 13.8% share in the stock of commerce graduates. Interestingly, over 30% of all Gujaratis who are either graduates or diploma holders have studied commerce for their degree. Of those who enrolled in 2004, a third studied commerce.

 

Exhibit 1: Changes in the regional governance of innovation policy during the past 6 years

Level of regional/local government

Changes in legislative &/or administrative authorities

Changes in powers related to innovation policy, if any

7 Regions (Delhi-Capital, Uttar Bharat, Uttar-Poorve, Madhya Bharat, Poorvanchal, Paschim, Dakshin Bharat)

Administrative authority is the Legislative Assembly of the States where Chief Minister is the Executive head and Governor is Constitutional head

The Minister for Science and Technology is responsible for announcing new innovation policy

8 Communities (Hindi speaking, Punjabi, Telugu, Malayali, Tamil, Gujarati, Marathi, Bengali)

Each State has the same structure of administration and governance

No change

27 states, Delhi Capital of the country, two union territories where the role of state is executed by Lt. Governor and his staff.

There is no change

There is no change

Each State has districts depending upon the size of the State. For example, Uttar Pradesh has got 52 districts controlled by Commissioner—a civil servant

There is no change

There is no change

 

Appraisal of Regional Governance System

Regional policy making and evaluation practices:  Departments of Science and Technology and the State Councils of Science and Technology are responsible for designing, implementation and evaluation of regional innovation policies. A large number of states have not drafted their innovation policies except a few. Madhya Pradesh and Uttarakhand are the two states that have come up with their innovation policy documents. Innovation system and networking with the other institutions is evaluated by the respective executive committees of the State Council annually and discussed at length in the Governing Body of the Councils. Nevertheless, it doesn’t show great enthusiasm for the innovation policy and plans in a comprehensive manner. The decision making process is quite transparent and the policy and plan documents are regularly published.

For example, the Punjab State Council for Science and Technology was established with the purpose of infusing scientific attitude in the public minds. It has laid emphasis on disbursing knowledge through various means of display and publications about the nature of life and physical surroundings, while signifying the usable aspects of available technologies. The Council’s activities are aimed at:

Dedicated human skill commissioned by the Council, in performing the assigned tasks, follows both formal and informal approaches in rendering assistance to industry and agriculture in the matter of economising on resources and on energy while inflicting minimum damage on the environment and ecology.

However, for the sake of regulating the adopted course of action, the Council has always sought feedback from people and press. The Council is very keen to resolve the problems peculiar to Punjab such as, water logging, chemically over-saturated soils and their deteriorating fertility, stagnating agriculture productivity, ground water depletion & its pollution, selenium toxicity, conservation of eco-systems etc. It has developed links with UNESCO, UNDP, World Bank, various universities, research centres and state departments at national and international level.

 

The Council has coordinated with different departments of the Punjab government to work out policies and plans for future course of action. The Council has also worked in close cooperation with other State Councils like the UP State Council on Science and Technology and Uttarakhand State Council on Science and Technology on coordinated research programmes on Environment, Ecology and Energy. The Council has also taken up a coordinated programme on documentation of traditional agriculture practices that are still useful and scientifically relevant requiring S&T inputs.

 

Exhibit 2:  Overall appraisal of regional policymaking and evaluation practice

Policymaking/evaluation practice

Benchmark

Ranking

(1 to 5)

Openness of the process of designing innovation policy (measures)

Policy development is undertaken through a partnership based approach involving consultation of key stakeholders at all stages

4

Quality of inputs to policy making (application of evidence-based techniques, use of evaluation results)

Policy design is systematically evidence-based and account is taken of evaluation results

3

Regularity and transparency of policy monitoring and review processes

All major policy documents and instruments are the subject of regular review involving stakeholder consultation

3

Impact on innovation of developments and regulations in other policy fields is appraised

A well-structured process exists for impact assessment of new regulations on innovation &/or innovation is taken into account as an issue in other policy documents

2

Existence of coordination mechanisms (high-level councils, inter-ministerial committees, etc.)

Well organised coherent system of policy coordination at government and agency levels

3

Existence of an “evaluation culture” in the field of innovation policy

Innovation policy measures are systematically evaluated at key milestones in their implementation

2

External versus internal evaluations of innovation policy measures

Evaluations respect good practice criteria (involve systematically external experts, evidence-based, quality appraisal of evaluation reports, etc.)

1

Transparency and publication of results of evaluations

All evaluations are published &/or discussed in a public forum

3

 

 

Regional policy benchmarking and trans-regional learning

The northern region of the country is one of the leading areas in innovation performance and innovation policy. It is mainly governed by the UP State Council of Science and Technology that keeps coordination with other State Councils in this region. The aim of the Council is to promote overall development of innovation performance in the state. The focus of the Council is Research Promotion, know-how development, up-gradation and transfer, entrepreneurship development, S&T communication and popularization of science.

It sponsors time-bound and result-oriented programmes relevant to the State to various universities, colleges, technical institutions, R&D laboratories, Non-governmental organisations and individual innovators.

The Council has established Remote Sensing Application Centre (RSAC) in Lucknow, Non-Conventional Energy Development Agency (NEDA), Lucknow, Science City in Allahabad, two Planetariums one in Lucknow and the other in Gorakhpur.

The state of Uttar Pradesh has several institutions devoted to scientific and technical education and research in various fields, institutes of higher education and research in chemical, physical and biological sciences, medical colleges and institutes, agriculture and allied institutes, polytechnic and technical institutes, engineering institutes and centres of specialized research. The expertise and research facilities of these institutes in various disciplines of science and technology are utilized to undertake problem-oriented research and development programmes of the state.

To promote research and development programmes in the state technically viable and time bound result oriented research schemes/projects in various disciplines of Science and Technology, such as Chemical and Pharmaceutical Sciences, Medical Sciences, Biological Sciences, Physical Sciences, Environmental Sciences and Pollution abatement, Plant Sciences, Earth Sciences, and Agriculture Sciences are sponsored by the Council to various universities, medical colleges, engineering colleges and R&D organisations located in Uttar Pradesh state. These R&D programmes help to improve the state-of-art of science and technology in the state by giving opportunities to individual scientists to carry out problem-oriented research programmes in their respective fields.

The Uttarakhand State Council of Science and Technology, under the Department of Science and Technology, Uttarakhand Government, Dehradun, was established in 2002. It still has a long way to go and catch up with the Uttar Pradesh State Council of Science and Technology,

The Uttarakhand Council has ambitious plans to develop entrepreneurship in the state. The multifaceted mission of the programme is high technology driven entrepreneurship development and acting as a window for the region to scan and get access to new technologies. With the dawning of the WTO era, industry needs to modernize technology, adopt marketing concepts and management practices to improve the quality of its products. To remain efficient and competitive, the Council will promote activities on such awareness issues through entrepreneurship development training programmes. The Council has released an innovation policy document named “Science and Technology Promotion and Development Policy-2007” The main emphasis of this white paper is on innovation promotion, IPR protection, networking of institutions and industry academy partnership.

There is room for trans-regional learning from the UP council in terms of innovation performance and its programmes. A close cooperation is needed between the two Councils for fostering regional innovation development programmes.

 

Overall appraisal and SWOT of the regional innovation governance

 

Exhibit 3: Regional innovation governance SWOT overview – Dominant regions

Region 1: Uttar Bharat
Strengths Weaknesses

Uttar Bharat region has twenty national laboratories governed by CSIR and Department of Science and Technology. It has excellent Institutions of Science and Technology and universities under Ministry of Education, Government of India. Apart from that there are a large number of agricultural universities responsible for bringing green revolution in the country. There are seven States in the Uttar Bharat region and each State has organized its S&T activities through the State Councils of Science and Technology. The entire region has a network of research activities in different sectors.

There is good coordination between the Centre and the States. As far as research and development is concerned, national laboratories help the State Councils organize their activities at the national level. A large number of science parks have been established with the help of the national laboratories operating in the region.

Uttar Bharat region State Councils of Science and Technology will have to organise themselves in a better way to have more interaction with the national laboratories and multinationals establishing their units in the regions, otherwise their technology programmes will not have any relevance to the needs of the region.
Opportunities Threats

To promote research and development programmes in the Uttar Bharat region, technically viable research schemes/projects in various disciplines of science and technology: chemical and pharmaceutical sciences, medical sciences, biological sciences, physical sciences, environmental sciences and pollution abatement, plant sciences, and agriculture sciences with time-bound result-oriented programme are sponsored by State Councils for Science and Technology.

To identify the areas in which science and technology can be utilized for achieving the socio-economic objectives of tackling the problems of backwardness, unemployment and poverty in the region. 

The local institutions involved in the development of indigenous technologies in different sectors will become obsolete soon as the multinationals will completely take over the local indigenous products. It is necessary that they come out with improved technologies to compete internationally.

 

Region 2: Dakshin  Bharat

Strengths Weaknesses

A very strong network of CSIR national laboratories in the Dakshin Bharat region. Large number of universities and institutions of excellence in science and technology like Indian Institute of Science, Indian Institute of Technology etc.

Over the last 29 years, Karnataka State Council for Science and Technology has completed several projects in various sectors like Energy, Environment, Agriculture, and Information technology. Bengaluru city is the hub for information technology and Software Technology Parks.

There is hardly any interaction between the regional institutes and the centrally administered institute in the region. The innovation policies announced by the state governments are hardly implemented or evaluated.
Opportunities Threats

A large number of multinational companies have established their units in Bengaluru, there is an opportunity for the Indian youth engaged in the software industry to learn new techniques with big companies coming in.

Threat is only from the multinational companies selling their products at a very low price with which the local companies cannot compete. In computer hardware, India doesn’t have the electronics component base, and therefore, has not done well. Dakshin Bharat region has a large number of companies dealing in hardware but is under severe threat from foreign companies.

 

 

Back to "Theme Overview"

Go back to Home Page of 'India, Science & Technology:2008'