Universities in India's National System of Innovation: An Overview

Abstract

The status and functioning of Indian universities is explored in the Indian context from an NSI perspective. Whilst NSI is the main guiding post, the very social and economic context of Indian situation reflect the theoretical underpinning of this paper. The First part serves as a background to knowledge institutions and university sector in India. Basically, it identifies the main actors and agencies of India's NSI, namely, public research system comprising national laboratories, main science and technology agencies and councils and the university system. Given the focus of the paper on Indian universities in a macro historical perspective, the Second part is devoted to trace the growth and structure of university sector in terms of three phases, namely, 1940s to 1980; 1980 to 1990; and the era of liberalization after 1991. The Third part of the paper is devoted to knowledge production and knowledge diffusion. There are some important findings coming out of the quantitative data. It is argued that Indian production of doctorates is falling behind countries like China. Further, Indian universities are yet to achieve Humboltian goal. Finally, the paper has a concluding section which concerns with the current and future challenges facing Indian universities and their role in India's NIS.

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