EDITOR’ S NOTE
India’ s Innovation Engine Is Running on Empty
India’ s political leaders love to proclaim the nation’ s arrival as a science and technology powerhouse. Yet, the ground reality tells a very different story: laboratories without scientists, and scientists without support.
According to a parliamentary disclosure, more than 2,500 posts are lying vacant across the Department of Biotechnology( DBT), the Department of Science & Technology( DST), and the Council of Scientific & Industrial Research( CSIR). This staggering shortfall includes director-level leadership, hundreds of scientist positions, and crucial research roles. CSIR alone accounts for over 2,200 unfilled scientist posts— an astonishing figure for an institution meant to be the backbone of Indian innovation.
Meanwhile, another crisis festers quietly. Seventy-five women biotech scientists selected under DBT’ s flagship BioCARe programme are still waiting for their research grants. The scheme was designed to give women, especially those re-entering after career breaks, a fair chance at independent research. Instead, it has turned into a waiting room of frustration. Promises have been made, talent has been chosen, but the funding pipeline has stalled. For women researchers already battling systemic bias, such delays are more than bureaucratic hiccups— they are career-threatening setbacks.
The two issues are symptoms of the same disease: neglect. India is building slogans instead of systems, announcements instead of accountability. Empty laboratories mean wasted infrastructure and lost opportunities, while stalled funding for women researchers erodes trust in the very policies meant to promote equity.
Every day of delay is a day of research lost, and innovation cannot wait for bureaucratic files to move. Science is not a luxury— it is the foundation of health security, climate resilience, and economic strength. Every vacant post is a lost experiment. Every delayed grant is a missed breakthrough. If India wants to be taken seriously as an innovation leader, it must first put its own house in order. Fill the seats. Release the funds. Stop starving science of its most vital resource: people.
We look forward to your ideas and feedback.
Yours’ truly
CHIEF EDITOR Write to me at rk @ biovoicenews. com
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