Reading the NEP 11: Research for Every University
English

A friend teaches history
in an affiliated college.
She has no grant,
no research scholars
and no laboratory, and asks
whether the research chapter is about
her at all.
On paper, it is.
Chapter 17 is about research
in all fields,
and it names colleges
where research is only beginning.
The foundation it proposes has existed
in law since 2023.
Its own first two budgets went unspent.
On page 45
the chapter puts India's investment
in research and innovation
at 0.69 per cent of GDP.
It sets that beside 2.8 per cent
in the United States,
4.3 in Israel and 4.2 in South Korea.
Research usually means laboratories.
Where does that leave history,
commerce or a language department?
The chapter says that clean water,
health care and clean air need science,
and also a deep understanding
of the social sciences and humanities.
Such research, it says,
must be done in India
and cannot simply be imported.
It calls research in the arts
and humanities extremely important.
It wants research and internships
in the undergraduate curriculum,
and faculty careers
that give due weight to research.
A four-year degree may end
in a degree with Research.
Every new PhD scholar is to learn
to teach.
To build that culture,
the policy proposes
a National Research Foundation.
It would fund peer-reviewed research
in all disciplines,
and seed research in state universities
and in colleges
where it is only beginning.
And who would run it?
Existing funders,
from the science departments
to the Indian Council
of Historical Research,
would carry on.
The foundation itself would be governed
independently of the government,
by a rotating board of the very
best researchers and innovators.
In August 2023 Parliament passed
a law creating the Anusandhan
National Research Foundation.
Its governing board is headed
by the Prime Minister,
with the Union ministers of science
and of education as vice-presidents.
On the board sit one member
from the social sciences and humanities,
and up to six experts
from the natural sciences and engineering.
The Act names the sciences,
engineering,
environment,
health and agriculture,
and takes in the humanities
and social sciences at their scientific
and technological interfaces.
The policy named no sum.
In 2023 the Union government announced
50,000 crore rupees for five years,
most of it expected
from industry and philanthropy.
The foundation's own budget
has been 2,000 crore rupees a year.
Parliament's science committee found
that none of it was spent
in the first two years.
By January 2026,
1,191 crore had been spent.
The foundation began work
in February 2024.
For 2024–25 the Union Budget
also records 721 crore spent
under the separate line
of the science board it replaced.
So most of the money is a hope.
Has any of it reached a state university?
Under a scheme begun in November 2024,
a top-ranked institution mentors
a group of others.
By March 2026, seven such
networks had been approved,
with 42 partner institutions,
and each must include
at least two state public universities.
We found no figure for the money
that has reached the partners.
For the humanities and social sciences,
the foundation chose ten centres
in May 2026 from 945 proposals.
Each must be led by a scholar
from the social sciences,
humanities, management or policy,
with up to 25 crore rupees
over five years.
The older councils for history, philosophy
and social science still give fellowships.
Parliament's standing committee
on education noted in December 2025
that they pay 17,000 to 20,000 rupees
a month, against 37,000
for a UGC fellowship.
Official statistics
for 2023–24 put research spending
at 0.84 per cent of GDP, up
from 0.64 three years earlier.
They do not explain the rise.
Higher education carries out
about an eighth of that research.
The policy's 0.69 per cent came
without a year or a source.
And will any of this ever reach
a college like hers?
Bijayalaxmi Nanda,
principal of Miranda House in Delhi,
spoke in August 2026
about her first students
to finish a research year.
Teachers once had little to say
about students' research skills
in letters of recommendation, she said.
Now they have evidence.
The year helped many of her students
who went abroad for a master's.
Binay Panda, a professor
at Jawaharlal Nehru University,
wrote in July 2024 about
the foundation's boards.
They had not a single person
from the central or state universities
and colleges it was meant
to reform, he said.
And 72 per cent of its money
had to be raised outside government,
with little detail on how.
And my friend, with no grant?
What can she do this month?
Ask your librarian whether your college
is on One Nation One Subscription.
Since January 2025 it has given
institutions run by the Centre
and the states access
to more than 13,000 journals.
Then put one small piece of research
into a course you already teach.
A history class can list
what a local archive holds,
and a commerce class can survey 50 shops.
A language class can translate
a text nobody has translated.
And write to one researcher
at a nearby university.
A botany teacher at a government college
in Pulwama and a physics teacher in Umred
both publish internationally,
through collaborations and fellowships.
One says funds are shrinking,
and the other has sent samples as far
as Kochi for want of equipment.
A list of what the district archive holds.
She could start that next week,
grant or no grant.
That list can be the first page
in her file.
The full text
and our sources are linked below.
Next time, languages,
arts and Indian knowledge.