India's ambition to become a deeper science and innovation economy will require more than incremental funding, according to Anusandhan National Research Foundation Chief Executive Officer Shivkumar Kalyanaraman, who argued that the country cannot afford to wait decades for its research system to mature.
Speaking in the context of India's push to raise research and development spending toward 3% of gross domestic product, Kalyanaraman set out a patient-capital architecture designed to mobilise private money, reduce friction around intellectual property and align public programmes with national missions. The message is clear: India must build a research multiplier that converts every rupee of public support into broader private participation, faster commercialisation and stronger institutional capability.
Patient Capital Model
Kalyanaraman's framework rests on the idea that research ecosystems do not scale through grants alone. They need long-duration capital, predictable policy support and mechanisms that allow discoveries to move beyond laboratories into markets. In his formulation, patient capital is not just funding that waits for returns; it is capital that tolerates long gestation periods, absorbs technical risk and supports the uncertain path from basic research to deployable technology.
That approach is especially relevant for India, where public spending on R&D has historically lagged behind advanced economies and where private sector participation has often been concentrated in a narrow set of industries. The ANRF chief's pitch suggests a structural shift: instead of treating research as a cost centre, India should treat it as an investable national asset with compounding returns across manufacturing, digital infrastructure, healthcare, energy and strategic technologies.
The emphasis on a multiplier effect is significant. It implies that the goal is not merely to increase the absolute level of spending, but to make each unit of investment more productive by crowding in private capital, encouraging collaboration and reducing duplication across institutions.
Open IP, Faster Scale
A central part of the proposed architecture is open intellectual property licensing. By making selected research outputs easier to access and adapt, the model aims to lower barriers for startups, universities and industry partners that may otherwise struggle to negotiate costly or slow licensing arrangements.
For India's startup and venture capital ecosystem, this could be an important unlock. Early-stage deep-tech companies often face a difficult choice between expensive proprietary technology and slow in-house development. A more open licensing regime, if implemented carefully, could shorten development cycles, improve capital efficiency and help startups build on publicly funded research without reinventing core technologies.
The challenge, however, lies in balancing openness with incentives. Universities and public research institutions still need pathways to capture value from their discoveries, while investors need confidence that IP rights are clear and enforceable. Kalyanaraman's framework appears to seek that balance by pairing openness with structured capital and mission-oriented deployment rather than leaving IP policy to operate in isolation.
Mission-Led Innovation Push
The third pillar is the use of national mission programmes to anchor demand and coordinate effort. Mission-led innovation can give researchers and investors a clearer target, whether the objective is clean energy, advanced materials, biotechnology, semiconductor capability or other strategic domains. In practice, such programmes can reduce uncertainty by creating visible procurement pathways, public validation and long-term policy continuity.
For venture investors, this matters because deep-tech bets often fail when there is no early market signal or when public systems do not act as first buyers. Mission programmes can help bridge that gap by creating a pipeline from lab to pilot to scale. They also help align universities, startups, corporates and government agencies around shared outcomes rather than fragmented incentives.
Kalyanaraman's remarks arrive at a time when India is under growing pressure to move beyond software-led innovation and build stronger capabilities in frontier science. The broader policy question is whether the country can create institutions that support long-horizon research without sacrificing speed, accountability or commercial relevance.
The ANRF chief's answer is essentially that India must stop thinking in annual budget cycles and start thinking in decades, but without waiting decades to show progress. That is the tension at the heart of the new research agenda: how to build a system patient enough for science, yet agile enough for startups and industry to act now.
If the architecture he described gains traction, it could reshape how India funds and commercialises research, with implications for venture capital, university-industry partnerships and the country's long-term competitiveness. The real test will be execution: whether the state can create credible incentives, whether private capital responds, and whether open IP and mission programmes can be translated into a functioning innovation pipeline rather than a policy aspiration.