Science is much more than just about discovery—it is a national sovereignty imperative today

Science is no longer only about discovery. It increasingly shapes how countries make economic and strategic choices—much like it already does for companies.

This is most visible in the climate space.

For India, climate is not a conceptual environmental prediction. It is a reality of the present day. A weak monsoon affects growth.

Heat affects energy demand and human productivity. Extreme weather influences infrastructure design, insurance costs and public spending.

These are not theoretical issues. They are policy and economic decision-making factors.

Yet, many global models and risk frameworks used to guide climate decisions are built in richer and more industrial countries with different climatic conditions.

They offer useful direction but cannot fully capture India’s development context. Borrowed averages are no substitute for local evidence.

That is where the idea of science as a matter of sovereignty becomes practical rather than ideological.

If the science informing risk, resilience and transition pathways does not reflect Indian conditions, policy and investment decisions will inevitably be suboptimal.

Relevance matters more than prestige. But this is not just about climate.

The same issue arises in artificial intelligence (AI), food systems, advanced materials and new age manufacturing.

Countries that invest early in foundational science as well as research and development (R&D) are better positioned to shape technology standards, supply chains and market structures.

Those that don’t end up having to adapt to frameworks set elsewhere.

India is not short of capability. We have credible scientific institutions, strong technical talent and deep datasets across climate, agriculture and space.

When science, policy and scale coalesce, India has shown it can deliver—from space missions to digital public infrastructure to renewable energy expansion.

The constraints that will hold India back are different.

Our investment in R&D is modest relative to our ambitions. At roughly 0.6-0.7% of GDP, India’s R&D spending is low for a country that seeks technological leadership in an innovation-driven and climate-constrained planet.

Private sector participation in upstream research is also limited, with more comfort and familiarity with adoption and scaling than in original scientific work.

There is also a translation gap. High-quality research often does not convert into decision tools for planners, regulators, financiers or industry.

As a result, science does not always travel the last mile into policy and markets, and when it does, it does so slower than hoped.

This is a capital and coordination challenge.

Deeper and more consistent funding for foundational and applied research is essential, particularly in areas with long-term strategic potential such as climate modelling, water systems, resilient agriculture and energy transitions.

Equally important is breaking silos so that science, economics, data and policy talk as well as work with each other more naturally.

Climate provides a useful entry point because India’s exposure is high and immediate, and is an area where India has remarkably broad-based consensus about the issue and support for action.

However, the opportunity is bigger than that. In a technology-driven world, knowledge itself isclim becoming a strategic asset—and this can only be built through home-grown science and technology.

In the years ahead, the comparative advantage of nations will emerge not only from how fast they grow but how effectively they build frontier sciences and scalable technologies. For India, sustained investment in science and R&D is a strategic imperative—directly tied to competitiveness, resilience and long-term economic strength.

The author is chief advisor, India, Environmental Defense Fund.