Leaky pipeline: On India and permanent scientific staff. 

India must ensure it retains the services of committed scientists. 

A recent report analysing public funded research and development institutions in India had some pointers that should raise an alarm. In several of the 244 institutions studied, there was a decrease in the number of permanent, scientific staff in 2022-23 compared to the previous year. There were also fewer organisations in 2022-23 compared to the previous year that reported hiring permanent staff. The institutes together had 19,625 contractual staff and 12,042 permanent staff in 2022-23. Not surprisingly, the slowdown in hiring was made up by hiring scientific research personnel on short-term contracts. These contractual staff were a 14% rise over 2021-22. The very fact that contractual workers exceed permanent staff in scientific institutions is a matter of concern. This data emerges from a study commissioned by the Office of the Principal Scientific Adviser and the institutions studied, do not include the ‘strategic sectors’, such as defence, atomic energy and space which consume the lion’s share of India’s research and development expenditure. As a report of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Science, Technology and Environment tabled in Parliament last month observed, nearly three in five of the posts sanctioned for scientific personnel at one of India’s top institutes for basic science research, the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR), are unfilled. The TIFR is primarily funded by the Department of Atomic Energy. Further, the parliamentary report found that, on average, one in four of sanctioned posts at the key atomic energy research institutions and nuclear power plants was vacant. Clearly the rot runs deep. 

On the one hand, the government has announced missions to develop quantum computers and develop foundational artificial intelligence models. It has also declared its intent to align research and development towards industry-specific research. However none of this will bear fruit without scientists, particularly young researchers who are engaged full-time, having long careers at institutions doing cutting-edge research. The government had once set up institutions such as the Indian Institutes of Science Education and Research (IISER) and introduced four-year undergraduate programmes in basic science, precisely because the incentives then were not strong enough to retain potential scientists. India needs to ensure that the conditions for research, such as respectable salaries, funds and equipment to do good research, are made available more widely.