Discuss the objectives of the Anusandhan National Research Foundation Act, 2023, and assess the gap between its equitable-funding mandate and current disbursement patterns.

Enacted to give India a single apex funding agency for research, the Anusandhan National Research Foundation (ANRF) Act, 2023 subsumed the Science and Engineering Research Board (SERB) of 2008 and placed the new body under the Department of Science & Technology [2]. Its promise was democratisation of research funding; its early record shows that promise only partly met.

Objectives of the Act

• Seed, grow and promote R&D and foster a culture of research and innovation across universities, colleges, research institutions and R&D laboratories [2].
• Widen the research base beyond elite institutions, in line with the National Education Policy's push to build research capacity in State and non-IIT institutions [2].
• Consolidate fragmented funding streams by absorbing SERB and creating a single statutory window for basic and applied research [2].
• Mobilise non-government finance: of the ₹50,000 crore ANRF Fund target for 2023–28, only ₹14,000 crore is budgetary, the rest sourced from PSUs, private firms, philanthropies and international bodies [3].

The mandate–disbursement gap

• NITI Aayog's Ease of Doing R&D in India report (April 2026), drawn from 400+ institutional leaders and 850+ scientists, finds ANRF support overwhelmingly concentrated in the IITs, with thin representation of State universities and regional institutions [1].
• Duplication persists: DST, CSIR and ANRF continue funding overlapping areas, diluting the consolidation objective [1].
• No unified, machine-readable database of publicly funded research exists, so overlaps and gaps cannot even be detected [1].
• Dependence on private money — nearly three-fourths of the target — makes equitable outreach contingent on donors who naturally prefer established institutions [3].
• Structural weakness is compounded by India's GERD at roughly 0.6–0.7% of GDP, far below major economies [1].

The gap, therefore, is one of architecture rather than intent. Operationalising NITI Aayog's hub-and-spoke model, linking 150–200 universities to an IIT, IISER or national laboratory, alongside a transparent funding registry, would let ANRF deliver the inclusive research ecosystem the Act envisaged [1].