Weak science–industry linkage remains a bottleneck for India's innovation ecosystem. Suggest measures to make public research facilities serve industry better.

In 1926, a Swiss astronomical observatory below the Jungfrau tested English rubber for moisture absorption [1]. It showed early on that labs built for pure science can also serve industry. India's public labs rarely make this shift. Gross R&D spending (GERD) was only 0.64% of GDP in 2020-21. Private industry contributed about 36% of it, against more than 70% in the US, China and South Korea [2].

Why the linkage remains weak

• Government-led R&D: research agendas follow publications rather than what the market needs, and firms invest little themselves [2].
• Idle, costly equipment: advanced instruments stay inside institutes, while MSMEs and startups cannot afford their own. DST's SATHI scheme was set up to close this gap [3].
• "Valley of death": research stalls between the lab prototype and commercial scale because risk capital is scarce [4].
• Fragmented funding: many agencies fund research, and industry has had no formal voice in setting priorities [5].

Measures to make public facilities serve industry

• Shared access by design: expand SATHI centres and list every publicly funded instrument on the I-STEM portal, with online booking and clear fees [3].
• Industry in governance: use the ANRF Act's provisions in full: up to five industry members on its Governing Board and a mandate to attract private and public-sector investment [5].
• Patient capital: use the ₹1 lakh crore RDI Scheme's long-term, low- or nil-interest finance to take lab results to higher Technology Readiness Levels [4].
• Testing as a service: let national labs offer accredited testing and certification to MSMEs. This is the modern version of the 1926 rubber test [1].
• Scientist incentives: count patents, licences and industry contracts in promotions, and allow joint appointments and consultancy.
• Protect long-horizon assets: keep funding long-running public datasets. Decades of AGAGE air records exposed renewed emissions of the banned gas CFC-11 from eastern China [6]. Such public infrastructure creates value that no single firm would pay for.

Stronger links between labs and markets need access, capital, governance and incentives to work together. If ANRF, the RDI Scheme and SATHI run as one shared-infrastructure framework, public facilities can become engines of Atmanirbhar innovation. This would advance SDG 9 (industry, innovation and infrastructure) and move India towards the 2% of GDP R&D intensity that leading economies reach.