India cannot afford to replicate the 75-year evolutionary timelines of Western institutions like the US National Science Foundation or DARPA, according to Shivkumar Kalyanaraman, Chief Executive Officer of the Anusandhan National Research Foundation.
Speaking at TechSparks 2026, YourStory’s annual summit, Kalyanaraman made it clear that under an impatient Prime Minister, the organisation must bypass traditional bureaucratic friction and drive scientific discovery into the real economy at unprecedented speed.
Describing the foundation as an institutional startup, Kalyanaraman outlined how the nation is altering its approach to scientific research and technology commercialisation. Formalised by parliament in 2023 following recommendations in the National Education Policy 2020, the foundation operates as an autonomous statutory body presided over by the Prime Minister of India.
The organisation was established to transform the country into a global innovation powerhouse by linking higher education, private industry, venture capital, and global philanthropy, ensuring rapid funding flows from foundational research to market implementation.
Patient capital
At the centre of this financial transformation is the Research, Development, and Innovation fund, a government-backed pool of Rs 1 lakh crore. Designed as a patient capital instrument, the fund provides long-term financial support tailored to research-intensive and deep-tech enterprises that require extended gestation periods without demanding immediate short-term returns.
Instead of disbursing capital directly to individual businesses, the foundation acts as an apex funding architecture that routes money through secondary fund managers.
Under this fund-of-funds structure, an initial allocation is provided to nineteen selected fund managers and specialised statutory entities, which in turn attract additional private investment. This arrangement creates a financial multiplier expanding capital reaching real-world technology ventures.
“This is a patient capital fund and our Rs 1 lakh crore of government money or taxpayer money will catalyse a lot more anywhere from Rs 5 to 10 lakh crores by the time it hits the real economy,” he said.
To complement government allocations, the foundation aggregates corporate social responsibility grants, diaspora contributions, and global philanthropic partnerships.
The ultimate objective is to raise national expenditure on research and development from sub 1% of gross domestic product to 3% or more through a compound annual growth rate of 20 to 25%.
Democratising excellence
Beyond commercial capital, the foundation addresses structural imbalances across the higher education sector. Historically, advanced scientific research in India remained concentrated within a small cluster of elite institutions, such as the Indian Institutes of Technology and the Indian Institute of Science.
Pointing to the need for broader participation, Kalyanaraman noted, “India has a very tiny sliver of institutions that are deep in R&D and deep in the excellence of R&D. So, we would like to broaden this distribution, but our goal is not just to throw money at different places, but to really broaden the distribution of excellence.”
To achieve wider distribution without lowering standards, the foundation launched the Partnerships for Accelerated Innovation and Research initiative. This framework uses a hub-and-spoke mentorship structure in which top-tier research universities guide regional institutions from Kashmir to Nagaland.
To ensure academic research yields practical benefits, the foundation established targeted sectoral initiatives known as Maha programmes covering electric mobility, medical devices, space technology, artificial intelligence for science, drones, water security, and critical minerals.
A major bottleneck in commercialisation has been transferring intellectual property from universities to commercial startups. To resolve this, discoveries under programmes like artificial intelligence for science are released under open licensing frameworks derived from the MIT licence model, allowing startups to rapidly adopt university research and de-risk laboratory discoveries at regional translational test facilities.