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Published online 10 December 2008 | Nature 456, 685 (2008) | doi:10.1038/456685b
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India creates funding council for basic science
Autonomous agency will begin operations in April.
The Indian government plans to create an independent agency to promote basic research in science and engineering, along the lines of the US National Science Foundation, prime minister Manmohan Singh announced last week.
The new body, to be called the National Science and Engineering Research Board (NSERB), is expected to control an annual budget of 10 billion rupees (US$200 million) annually — equivalent to about 15% of last year's total funding for science — in new funding.
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I think autonomous funding agency is good idea in principle but many different agencies with separate administrative controls tend to just add to overhead. When creating a new agency we need to make sure that the same amount of money actually "trickles down" to research as could have by a unified funding scheme. France is a good example where most recent proposals are asking for closing down many independent funding agencies and centralizing the funding to help the falling science standards.