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The draft of the 5^th National Science Technology and Innovation Policy has been finalized and is now available for public consultation. The policy drafted through a4 track process of consultations during last 6 monthsaims to bring about profound changes through short, medium and long-term mission mode projects by building a nurtured ecosystem that promotes research and innovation on the part of both individuals and organizations.

It aims to foster, develop, and nurture a robust system for evidence and stakeholder-driven STI planning, information, evaluation, and policy research in India. The objective of the policy is to identify and address strengths and weaknesses of the Indian STI ecosystem to catalyse socio-economic development of the country and also make the Indian STI ecosystem globally competitive.

As India and the world reorient in the present context of the COVID-19 crisis, a new Science, Technology, and Innovation Policy (STIP) was initiated at this crucial juncture during mid-2020. For India to march ahead on a sustainable development pathway to include economic development, social inclusion and environmental sustainability for achieving an “Atmanirbhar Bharat'', a greater emphasis may be needed on promoting traditional knowledge systems, developing indigenous technologies and encouraging grassroots innovations. The emergence of disruptive and impactful technologies poses new challenges and simultaneously greater opportunities. The COVID-19 pandemic provided a compelling opportunity for R&D institutions, academia and industry to work in unison for sharing of purpose, synergy, collaboration and cooperation.

The STIP will be guided by its broad vision of achieving technological self-reliance and position India among the top three scientific superpowers in the decade to come, to attract, nurture, strengthen and retain critical human capital through a ‘people centric’ science, technology and innovation (STI) ecosystem, to double the number of Full-Time Equivalent (FTE) researchers, Gross Domestic Expenditure on R&D (GERD) and private sector contribution to the GERD every 5 years and to build individual and institutional excellence in STI with the aspiration to achieve the highest level of global recognitions and awards in the coming decade.

The new policy, STIP, revolves around the core principles of being decentralized, evidence-informed, bottom-up, experts-driven, and inclusive. Also, it aims to bring in the concept of ‘dynamic policy’ with a robust policy governance mechanism incorporating features such as implementation strategy, periodic review, policy evaluation, feedback, and adaptation, and most importantly, a timely exit strategy for various policy instruments. 

The process so far involved nearly 300 rounds of consultations with more than 40,000 stakeholders well distributed in terms of region, age, gender, education, economic status, etc. The STIP Secretariat was coordinated, supported, and guided by the Office of PSA, NITI Aayog, and DST. The formulation process, by design, envisioned as a very inclusive and participative model with intense interconnectedness among different tracks of activities.

The draft is placed for public consultation on DST’s website.

Suggestions, comments and inputs on the draft Policy may be shared by Monday the 25^th January,2021 on email: india.stip@gmail.com. The policy draft is available on https://dst.gov.in/draft-5th-national-science-technology-and-innovation-policy-public-consultation

 

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