Introduction:
In an era defined by complex global challenges—from climate change to public health and digital transformation—the ability to translate scientific knowledge into effective policy and meaningful societal impact has never been more critical. India, under Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s unique development trajectory and deep-rooted commitment to innovation, offers important lessons on how this science-policy-society interface can be strengthened to drive inclusive and sustainable progress.
Over the past decade, India has been steadily investing in its scientific and innovation ecosystem—not just in fundamental research, but also in building strong public-private partnerships, supporting startups and grassroots innovators, and participating actively in international collaborations. India’s efforts span diverse sectors—including space exploration, healthcare, energy, defense, digital technology, financial inclusion, and public service delivery—all underpinned by a transformative governance model that values both scale and frugality.
India’s model has not only influenced domestic policy but is also increasingly inspiring nations across the Global South and beyond to democratize science and innovation for equitable progress. This brief outlines seven key approaches that define India’s strategy for reinforcing the science-policy-society interface. Each approach is supported by examples of its implementation and offers practical lessons for global adaptation.
Lesson 1: Driving High-Impact Innovation Through Lean Engineering
India’s approach to research and development is deeply rooted in the principles of lean engineering— maximizing value with minimal resources. Rather than relying on large budgets, India has prioritized cost-optimization and design efficiency, often achieving remarkable outcomes with limited inputs.
This model is best exemplified by the Mars Orbiter Mission (Mangalyaan), which captured global attention for its scientific success and groundbreaking frugality. At ₹631 crores ($74 million)—compared to NASA’s ₹5700 crores ($671 million) MAVEN mission—it stunned the world with its minimalism and success. India’s space agency, ISRO (Indian Space Research Organisation), accomplished this by repurposing existing technologies, reducing custom components, and streamlining mission objectives, while maintaining scientific rigor.
What makes India’s lean engineering model distinct is its culture of resource-conscious innovation. Public institutions collaborate with academia and local industry to produce prototypes quickly, test iteratively, and scale solutions incrementally. Risk-tolerant governance, mission-focused leadership, and accountability-driven project management further ensure that resources are used efficiently without stifling creativity.
The lesson here is clear: Innovation does not always require massive investment—it requires smart design, adaptive thinking, and a relentless focus on essentials. For countries seeking to scale science and innovation with limited resources, India’s economic model offers a robust, proven alternative.
Lesson 2: Unlocking Affordability Through Large-Scale Procurement and Demand Aggregation
One of India’s most effective strategies for scaling innovation and enhancing accessibility has been large-scale procurement and demand aggregation. By coordinating national procurement and generating unified demand signals, India has significantly reduced per-unit costs, improved supply chain efficiency, and accelerated the adoption of key technologies.
The UJALA LED lighting program exemplifies this approach. Led by India’s Energy Efficiency Services Limited (EESL), the initiative used bulk procurement to reduce LED bulb prices from around ₹426 ($5) to under ₹85 ($1) within a few years. Centralized purchasing and competitive bidding enabled the distribution of over 368 million bulbs across the country, expanding access to energy-efficient lighting. In total, the program catalyzed the sale of over 4,079 million LED bulbs in India. It also delivered major co-benefits—saving 47 billion kWh annually and avoiding 39 million tons of carbon emissions.
India’s success lies in building institutions and transparent e-procurement systems that aggregate demand, foster competition, and create predictable markets for private sector participation.
The key lesson: Well-orchestrated demand aggregation can de-risk innovation, attract industry, and rapidly scale solutions inclusively and cost-effectively—especially in high-volume emerging economies.
Lesson 3: Building Inclusive Systems Through Open-Source Digital Public Infrastructure
India’s digital transformation has been driven by a strong commitment to open-source, interoperable Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI)—a foundational layer enabling seamless, inclusive, and scalable service delivery. Instead of relying on proprietary systems, India has developed core platforms as public goods that can be adapted across sectors and replicated globally.
Two resoundingly successful flagship examples are Aadhaar and the Unified Payments Interface (UPI). With over 138 crores (1.38 billion) registrations, Aadhaar has evolved into a tool for distributive justice, strengthening trust in government and expanding access to essential services while minimizing leakages and fraud. UPI, India’s real-time, zero-cost digital payment system, processed 1616 crores (16.1 billion) transactions worth ₹22.51 lakh crores ($264 billion) in February 2025 alone, empowering small businesses, vendors, migrant workers, and rural users—and democratizing digital finance.
India’s DPI model is as much about governance and architecture as it is about technology. Open, modular, and consent-based by design, these platforms foster innovation across public and private sectors while ensuring trust and data protection.
The key lesson: Governments can shape inclusive, secure, and innovation-friendly digital ecosystems—a model already replicated in countries like the UAE, Singapore, Bhutan, Nepal, Sri Lanka, France, and Mauritius.
Lesson 4: Advancing Self-Reliance Through Local Manufacturing and Indigenous Innovation
India’s development strategy has long prioritized strategic self-sufficiency in critical sectors as a foundation for economic resilience, national security, and global equity. Initiatives like “Make in India” and Production Linked Incentive (PLI) schemes have strengthened domestic manufacturing and spurred indigenous innovation—reducing import dependency and enhancing the country’s capacity to serve both national and global needs.
The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the strength of this approach. India rapidly scaled production of two domestically developed and manufactured vaccines—Covaxin and Covishield. By localizing vaccine production, India ensured national health security while also delivering over 300 million doses to more than 100 countries through the Vaccine Maitri initiative—particularly benefiting low- and middle-income nations. This success reflected a strategic convergence of public R&D, private sector innovation, regulatory speed, and global solidarity.
Under Mission COVID Suraksha that aimed to further accelerate the development of COVID-19 vaccines, India developed four indigenous vaccines in under two years: ZyCoV-D (the world’s first DNA-based vaccine), CORBEVAX™ (India’s first protein subunit vaccine), GEMCOVAC™-19 (India’s first mRNA vaccine), and iNCOVACC (the world’s first intranasal COVID-19 vaccine). This demonstrated not only scientific ability and manufacturing capacity but also institutional agility.
The broader lesson: Building local capacity is not an isolationist endeavor—it’s a strategy for resilience, affordability, and shared global progress. India’s model offers a pragmatic path for countries seeking sovereignty with solidarity amid fragile supply chains and geopolitical uncertainties.
Lesson 5: Empowering Citizens Through Simplifying Active Participation
India’s approach to the science-policy-society interface increasingly emphasizes simplifying citizen engagement through technology-enabled policy delivery. A compelling example is the Pradhan Mantri Surya Ghar: Muft Bijli Yojana (PMSGMBY), launched in February 2024, which integrates technology innovation, public policy, and citizen participation into a unified framework.
The program aims to install rooftop solar systems on 10 million households, offering up to 300 units of free electricity per month. To drive adoption, the government provides subsidies covering 30–40% of installation costs, while public sector banks also offer collateral-free, low-interest loans for lower-income households. This combination has led to a tenfold increase in monthly installations, now averaging 70,000 per month, far exceeding pre-scheme levels.
As of March 2025, the initiative has facilitated over 1 million installations, disbursing ₹4,770 crore in subsidies to 613,000 beneficiaries, and adding more than 3 GW of rooftop solar capacity. A key feature of the scheme is its digitally-enabled delivery model: citizens can apply, choose from registered vendors, track progress, and receive direct benefit transfers—all through a centralized online portal, ensuring transparency and minimizing bureaucratic barriers.
The key lesson: Scientific innovation achieves greater impact when embedded in responsive policy and citizen-centric design. India’s model demonstrates how coordinated interfaces between government, industry, and communities can translate clean technology into inclusive development.
Lesson 6: Advancing Global Action Through Science Diplomacy
India’s science diplomacy shows how countries can leverage scientific capacity and inclusive policy to build resilient, equitable global partnerships. Rooted in co-development and solidarity, especially with the Global South, India’s model goes beyond aid or technology transfer—serving as a tool for mutual empowerment that aligns science, policy, and society on a global scale.
The International Solar Alliance (ISA), co-founded by India and France, exemplifies this approach. With over 116 member countries, ISA is a treaty-based, multi-stakeholder platform advancing solar deployment through shared research, policy alignment, capacity building, and co-investment. It bridges scientific ambition, institutional frameworks, and community-level needs across diverse geographies.
What distinguishes ISA is its role as an institutional bridge-builder. On the scientific front, it convenes technical expertise and knowledge networks to identify scalable, context-appropriate solar solutions. On the policy side, it helps member countries design enabling regulatory frameworks and financing models suited to their development stage. And critically, on the societal front, ISA supports capacity-building at the grassroots—training local engineers, strengthening implementation agencies, and promoting decentralized solar applications like solar pumps and mini-grids. This multilayered approach ensures that scientific advancement does not remain confined to labs or policy briefs—it becomes embedded in community needs and gets delivered through national systems.
The main lesson: When diplomacy is anchored in science and guided by inclusive policy, it extends the science-policy-society interface beyond borders, creating shared value and reinforcing trust in multilateralism.
Lesson 7: Embedding Local Knowledge in National Strategy Through Citizen Science and Community-Led Innovation
A truly inclusive science-policy-society interface recognizes that knowledge flows both ways—from institutions to communities and from the grassroots to governance. India’s approach to environmental stewardship reflects this, particularly through the People’s Biodiversity Registers (PBRs), a participatory tool mandated under the Biological Diversity Act (2002).
As of May 2023, over 267,000 PBRs had been prepared by Biodiversity Management Committees (BMCs) at the village, municipal, and panchayat levels across India. PBRs document biodiversity, traditional ecological knowledge, and conservation practices rooted in centuries of lived experience. This bottom-up data is not just symbolic—it informs local development plans, environmental assessments, and national biodiversity strategies, offering a practical pathway to align scientific priorities with socio-cultural realities and regional contexts.
This PBR process has become one of the world’s largest exercises in citizen science and ecological democracy. Importantly, PBRs empower communities by giving them a stake in environmental governance. Rather than treating communities as passive recipients of policy, this model enables them to co-produce science and shape outcomes. Under the Mission LiFE initiative, India aims to establish a PBR in every village and further digitize and verify these registers—scaling it as a tool for biodiversity awareness, sustainable resource use, and equitable benefit-sharing.
The key lesson: Community-anchored knowledge is not an add-on but foundational to sustainable, people-centric governance. Countries seeking resilient and inclusive policy systems must create formal pathways to integrate grassroots science into national planning and decision-making.
This article was originally published by the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs during the 10th Multistakeholder Forum on Science Technology, and Innovation for the Sustainable Development Goals (STI Forum 2025)
The views and opinions expressed here belong solely to the author and do not reflect the views of BlueKraft Digital Foundation.
