Regional determinants of research and development institutions in India

This paper provides an understanding of the regional determinants of research and development (R&D) institutions in India. R&D facilities locate across regions in response to factors such as: science and technology manpower availability, banking facilities, transport infrastructure, favorable real estate prices, state domestic product, patents, literacy, quality engineering colleges, higher education institutions, and investment via research and development expenditure. Further, R&D location brings regional change via industry location, employment and investment leading to regional economic development. The Indian government has pursued a balanced regional development strategy since the inception of planning in the 1950s. This strategy would need a dispersed location in geographical space. This policy changed to a marketoriented approach beginning in 1991. Various technology policy documents have emphasized upon 'promotion of science and technology research', 'attainment of technological competence', 'enlarging investment in R&D', and 'synergize science, technology and innovation'. To examine the trends of R&D this paper addresses the following four questions: (1) what are the regional patterns of R&D distribution in India? (2) what are the sector patterns of R&D distribution in India? (3) What determines the regional distribution of patents? (4) What determines the regional distribution of R&D in India during the periods 1988-1989,1998-1999 and 2009-2010? Multiple regression models are run to estimate the determinants of R&D in geographical space.