How can India attract global research talent to help power innovation economy

What do Silicon Valley, New York and London have in common?

A multiracial, multi-ethnic, multicultural workforce that powers their innovation economy

As developed economies, the USA and Europe were/are the “go to” destinations for research talent(brain drain). However, there are 2 important institutional and policy reasons why this was possible

why was this possible?

1. Universities were open to qualified foreigners to come and study.
2. The foreign nationals could stay back for work or research. They could continue their research at the universities and aspire to get tenured and prestigious positions with a path to permanent residency.

This greatly contributed to the next wave of post-industrial economic boom.

Last few decades have seen the rise of China to be a global superpower in manufacturing and monetize its demographic dividend. However, to compete in the knowledge economy China has realized that its large population is not enough. You need to attract the best and brightest global talent and create conditions that are conducive to their economic contribution.

As per this China Daily article

“It was estimated that in the first decade of this century, the number of foreigners working in China grew three times to 220,000”

Indias Demographic Dividend: Reality or Illusion?

With the rise of intellect driven economy Indias demographic dividend alone is not going to be enough to power the accelerated economic growth that is essential to be a global economic power.

India’s advantage: Indian Parents who spend on their children’s education has helped create Education infrastructure

In the Epic Bollywood movie 3 Idiots… as soon as he is born Farhan Qureshi’s (Madhavan) father declares “mera beta engineer banega”

Rich or poor every Indian parent dreams of giving their children a better education and opportunity to succeed than they had. This cultural mindset has meant that a disproportionate amount of family income has been set aside for “children’s education”. As a result of this demand .. supply has proliferated and many educational institutions churning out graduates. Just in one Indian city of Pune boasts over 120 engineering colleges. Surely at least 10 of them have decent infrastructure and potential to become world-class research institutions.

Many of these are substandard and the quality of graduates is not up to international standards. However, the silver lining is that the infrastructure necessary to create a world-class educational institution is already in place. It is relatively easy to inject quality into established infrastructure and bring it to international standards as compared to setting up grassroots infrastructure.

Here are some practical thoughts on what we can do to give our educational institutes are “quality boost” in terms of enabling research.

Allow Foreign Students to take admission in Indian Universities

Higher education in the US and other western countries is getting increasingly debt driven and costly. A cheaper and quality institution like an IIT can potentially be much more appealing and affordable. Similarly, it won’t be surprising if for many students in countries like Bangladesh, UAE and Nigeria .. an “IIT” is considered to be the gold standard in affordable education compared to a more expensive Stanford/MIT.

Creating programs wherein a large number of quality institutions in India are able to more easily intake foreign students and have flexibility in charging fees can rapidly create a diverse multi-cultural student mix in Indian universities. This will lead to an improvement in quality as well as innovation.

Create Work Visas and other avenues for foreign students to continue to innovate in India

Globally rightward policy shift against “immigrants taking jobs away” has led to more protectionist policies. However, research has shown that immigrants who come for higher education have been key to several startups and have added talent and jobs. Availability of work visas and other incentives to the top talent studying in India is essential to create a pool of globalized talent. Established Fortune 500 corporates as well as startups, will set up shops in the locations where such talent is available.

With a large rate of unemployment and underemployment, this appears to be a counterintuitive recommendation. However careful study of global talent and successes of innovation economies will highlight that a few jobs to the most talented foreign students will create many more and accelerate growth rates in the rest of the economy.

Create government-funded programs to attract Indian diaspora and Foreign talent to contribute to research in India

China created a program Recruitment Program of Global Experts. Also called Thousand Talent Program it seeks to employ top foreign talent to China by promising lucrative grants/bonus of around $150000 USD to anyone accepted into the program and substantial additional research grants based on merit. This has been very successful in attracting talent to Chinese universities. The research output, as well as the global ranking of the universities, has jumped up significantly in the last decade.

India has a large diaspora of Indian origin researchers and PhDs in foreign universities. Some kind of a grant based program along with research collaboration with the foreign universities can help attract talent at least as a visiting faculty. A “retire in India” program that infuses healthcare benefits, housing assistance and grants to attract the senior Indian diaspora researchers can definitely help kickstart quality research in universities.

Leverage Indias soft power to create a positive brand and attract talent

India has much higher soft power with globally recognized brands like Yoga and Bollywood. Indian democracy and free speech can be significantly more attractive to attract foreign talent as compared to censored and regulated economies. A global branding campaign that infuses India’s rich history and cultural heritage, democratic and free speech based polity and vibrant economy can help attract world-class research talent to India.

If we can identify some education hubs for urgent infrastructure and quality of life improvements and put together a structured program it will definitely result in attracting talent to do research in India.