Globelics Academy 23 rd May- 3 rd June 2005

1. Globelics Academy 23rd May- 3rd June 2005 B.Mahesh Sarma PhD Candidate, Center for Studies in SciencePolicy, JNU, India

2. The Great Sectoral Divergence Fragmented Transitions in India’s Innovation system

3. The Indian case….. • Has been an early disciple of S&T for development paradigm • Well developed institutional structure • Unique amongst the third world experiments • Spectacular successes and abysmal failures

4. Sectoral dynamics and divergence in • Agriculture (a success but plateauing) • Health (public versus private) • Strategic (space, nuclear, defense) • Industrial and service sectors • Software, pharma, auto parts • IT hardware, fertilizers, telecommunication etc

5. What I will focus on ? • SOFTWARE versus ICT HARDWARE (excluding telecommunication hardware)

6. Studies so far • Policy studies • Industrialisation & Tech. Strategy studies • Sectoral and firm level studies • Post modern reviews

7. Conceptual Framework • Innovation systems as organizing framework • Historical, contingent and situated

8. Hypothesis • India’s attempt at building innovative capabilities has been characterised by an input driven approach. The S&T polices of the country has been reasonably successful in establishing a national innovation infrastructure (Porter, 1990) characterised by a viable R&D system, and reasonably diverse and robust scientific community and an enviable knowledge base and human resources.

9. Hypothesis- 2 • Indian innovation system is yet to reorient its polices towards establishment and strengthening of polices, programmes and institutions for diffusion and use of these capabilities built. The building up of innovation system is has been punctuated by contexts and historical conjectures rather than carefully calibrated output orientation. In other words the country has only managed a punctuated and partial transition towards an explicit innovation system.

10. Hypothesis- 3 • Dynamism in certain sectors could be partly attributed to the convergence between S&T policies on one hand and the trade and investment policies on the other. In case of less dynamic sectors there has been no convergence between these three sets of policies.

11. Hypothesis- 4 • Relatively very high levels of performance and consistently high growth rates in certain sectors (software) has been the result of their differential abilities to leverage the implicit innovation system, and built competitive advantage and not meagrely due to relatively cheap human resources. By this we mean, these sectors have been successful in establishing networks between actors, agencies and institutions thereby building dynamism.

12. Hypothesis- 5 • For the transformation of an implicit innovation system into an explicit one, the existence of pole stars is mandatory. They provide the initial glue that not only binds the components of implicit innovation system, they are also instrumental in other agents giving birth to a different set of institutions that provide network frame which spawns innovations, in products, process and organisational realms.

13. Research Questions-NII • What are the policy and institutional measures that the country adopted to put place and S&T system? • How far were these policies input driven? • Was there any relationship between the S&T polices and the trade and investment polices? • What were the underlying mores of technology that characterised the Self-reliant regimes in the first three decades of independence? • What kind of a knowledge-creating infrastructure was developed in India, as represented by its higher education system and national R&D system, which contributed to the success or failures of the sectors in question? • Why is the Indian Research system still heavily dependent on public funding? • How for the knowledge-creating infrastructure evolved in line with the changing character of knowledge production and use?

14. Research Questions- Software • Was the software success due to the benign neglect of the state? • Why did CMC, the first successful product software company failed to attain champion heights in the industry? • What are the factors that enabled the superlative performance of the Indian trio (TCS, Wipro and Infosys) what role did the academic institutions play in terms of providing skilled manpower? • Did the software companies gain any location advantages by being initially clustered around Bangalore, and if so what implication it has for the geographical diversification of the industry? • What impact does the shift in manpower to software industry; have on other sectors of the Indian economy?

15. Research Questions- Software • What role the demand side (especially the Y2K problem) play in the growth the software industry? • Would it possible replicate the organisational innovations (Offshoring and progressive scaling), which catapulted the Indian software services project? • Why did the set of policies, which benefited the services sector, stunt the growth of the ICT hardware sector? Were the policy regimes complementary or contradictory? What role did the pioneering players have in the divergent performance?

16. Methodology • Textured reading of Aggregate data • Critical reading of acts,policies, statements and press notes • In-depth comparative Case studies

17. And now it is For me to face the music Thank You!