Draft Science, Technology and Innovation Policy, 2020

The draft of the National Science, Technology and Innovation Policy (STIP) has been uploaded by the Department of Science and Technology (DST). This policy will replace the Science Technology and Innovation Policy of 2013.

STIP has been drafted with the vision of putting India among the top 3 scientific powers of the decade and also to strengthen India’s Science, Technology and Innovation ecosystem so as to achieve the goal of Atmanirbhar Bharat. This policy will also try to identify and address the weaknesses of the Indian Science, Technology and Innovations Ecosystem.

Important Provisions of the policy:

• Gender Equality is an important provision in this policy and it states that 30% reservations should be made for women in all decision-making bodies and “Spousal Benefits” should also be provided to the partners of scientists belonging to the LGBTQ community. Als0, the LGBTQ should be included and provisions should be made to safeguard their rights.
• Child care benefits should be made gender-neutral and flexible work timings along with parental leave should be issued irrespective of gender. Day-care centres should also be set up for the children of the employees as well as the elderly.
• All the scientific institutions have been asked to make cultural and structural changes to support the disabled.
• As of now married couples were not allowed to be posted in the same department and this has been removed from the new policy.
• It has been advised to take into consideration the academic age .i.e. the educational qualifications of the candidates over the biological age.
• To allow access to scientific knowledge and technical data to all the government has proposed to buy bulk subscriptions of all important scientific journals and provide everyone free access to them.
• A Science, Technology and Innovation Observatory will be set up that will serve as a central server to all the scientific data generated across the country.
• Local research and development capabilities will be improved so that the government does not rely on large scale imports and instead Made in India products will be in focus.
• Full-Time Equivalent researchers, Gross Domestic Expenditure on R&D (GERD) will be doubled.
• Currently, only 0.6% of GDP is used on GERD. It will be improved to attract foreign investments and there will tax benefits and increased market access.
• A Strategic Technology Board will be developed that will act as a bridge between all the strategic government departments and will monitor and recommend technologies to be bought or manufactured.