Why Indian CSR must back think tanks to realise Aatmanirbhar Bharat

India’s CSR regime, introduced in 2013, was designed to align private philanthropy with national priorities. In just a decade, it has mobilised one of the world’s largest corporate-backed social funds, crossing INR 34,900 crore in FY 2023–24. Much of this has gone into education, health, and rural development—areas where India has long faced deficits. Yet, despite these gains, CSR remains under utilised in one critical domain: policy research on national and international issues. Without investments in evidence, analysis, and knowledge creation, India risks falling short of its aspiration of becoming truly Aatmanirbhar.

This money has indeed changed lives. Education and health together account for over 60% of total allocations—critical areas where India has historically lagged. But amid these successes lies a striking imbalance: India spends almost none of its CSR resources on research, policy, and evidence creation. In FY 2023–24, allocations to the “Technology Incubators” category stood at just INR 1.91 crore across the country—an inconsequential fraction of INR 35,000-crore CSR pool.

Why This Gap Matters

If Aatmanirbhar Bharat is to move from rhetoric to reality, India needs more than schools and hospitals. It also requires research, ideas, and evidence that shape resilient policies, labour intensive competitive industries, and innovative solutions. For example, use of AI in remote healthcare. That requires both software and hardware. Only policy research can establish the ideal solution. In view of the increasing threats across all our borders we need to build up deterrent capabilities, and that too requires software and hardware. Much of the software can and is being developed by think tanks like us. Of course business and public institutions are in the vanguard. CSR, by design, is the perfect catalyst to build this intellectual infrastructure.

India’s research deficit is well known. Our Gross Expenditure on R&D (GERD) is stuck at 0.64% of GDP (2022–23), compared to 2.4% in China, 3.5% in the U.S., and 4.9% in South Korea (UNESCO; PIB, 2025). Worse, GERD is overwhelmingly funded by government and industry, while the private non-profit sector—including think tanks—accounts for barely 1% (DST, R&D Statistics at a Glance 2022–23).

This leaves India dangerously short of independent, long-term policy research. Think tanks, which should bridge government priorities and private innovation, remain underfunded and project-driven. Yet the demand for evidence has never been greater: NITI Aayog’s Development Monitoring and Evaluation Office (DMEO) has mainstreamed evaluations into policy, while missions like PM Gati Shakti or India’s green hydrogen strategy hinge on robust data and sectoral roadmaps.

The FCRA Squeeze

Until recently, many Indian think tanks survived on international philanthropy. That facility is slowly shrinking due to many antinational activities conducted by few NGOs, not all. Other than this and other reasons, between 2011 and 2024, the government cancelled more than 20,600 FCRA registrations, leaving only 16,000 NGOs licensed to receive foreign funds as of mid-2025 (MHA FCRA Dashboard, 2025). For policy research institutions like ours, this has meant severe uncertainty. If India wants self-reliant ideas to match its self-reliant production, domestic CSR must step up to support policy work.

The Law Already Allows It

Ironically, CSR law already provides for such funding. Schedule VII of the Companies Act, 2013 explicitly allows contributions to incubators and R&D projects in science, technology, engineering, and medicine at government-recognised institutions. Amendments in 2019 and 2020 even permitted corporate-backed R&D during COVID-19.The spirit of the Act is clear: CSR is meant to align with national priorities and the SDGs. Today, making India Aatmanirbhar is the foremost national priority—and it aligns directly with SDG-8 (Decent Work & Economic Growth), SDG-9 (Industry, Innovation & Infrastructure), and SDG-10 (Reduced Inequalities). The law does not need to change. What must change is corporate imagination.

What CSR-Funded Research Can Deliver

The potential gains are immense:

• Boosting MSME competitiveness through cluster-level research on standards, technology adoption, and import substitution.
• Future-ready skilling by mapping emerging jobs to the National Skills Qualifications Framework, ensuring India’s workforce is prepared for green and AI-driven industries.
• Strengthening state capacity with independent evaluations that improve last-mile delivery and governance efficiency.
  Driving innovation and technology transfer by funding think tanks to link research labs with industry, bridging India’s lab-to-market gap.

Even redirecting 5–10% of CSR funds to such work could generate an annual research kitty of INR 1,700–3,500 crore—larger than most foreign philanthropic inflows to Indian think tanks ever were.

Safeguards Against Misuse

Corporate boards often cite reputational risks in funding policy work. But those risks can be managed through simple safeguards:

• Partnering only with CSR-registered agencies and government-recognised institutions
• Using independent steering committees to oversee projects
• Linking disbursements to peer-reviewed milestones
• Publishing research outputs openly for transparency

Such measures ensure CSR remains both legally compliant and publicly accountable.

The Missing Pillar of CSR

India Inc. should be proud of transforming education, health, and rural infrastructure through CSR. But the missing pillar is knowledge. Without investing in our intellectual backbone, India risks importing ideas even while building factories.

Aatmanirbhar Bharat cannot be built on production alone. It must rest on self-reliant ideas, policies, and evidence. Redirecting even a small share of CSR towards think tanks would strengthen India’s intellectual sovereignty—and in doing so, help achieve the very national priorities the CSR law was created to serve.

The authors work for CUTS International, a 40+ year old global public policy research and advocacy group.