From faith to technology - more of India's wealthy are giving to science

Last year, Indian-American physicist Jainendra Jain, a co-recipient of the prestigious 2025 Wolf Prize and a figure well-known for his revolutionary research in quantum physics, was taken aback when he received a call from an Indian real estate tycoon.

Abhishek Lodha of the Lodha Group, whose projects include the ultra-luxury, golden-hued Trump Tower overlooking the Arabian Sea in southern Mumbai, asked the Penn State University professor if he could lead a new theoretical physics institute in the city as its founding director.

"I was pleasantly surprised someone building skyscrapers would suddenly be interested in putting money into fundamental sciences. It's a common thing to do for very rich people in the US, but not so much in India," Jain told the BBC in late May at the glittering launch of the Lodha Theoretical Physics Institute.

Weeks later, Rajiv Bajaj, scion to one of the country's oldest business dynasties, launched India's largest scholarship programme for women in core engineering, where female scholars would receive financial support of up to 800,000 rupees ($8,411, £6,293) for their education across select reputed universities.

In a country where faith rather than science has played an outsized role in philanthropy - nearly half of donations go to temples and religious organisations - this fresh wave of commitments to pure sciences and institution building marks a turning point in the way India's wealthy are approaching giving.

A bevy of Indian tycoons have ramped up monetary commitments to such initiatives - from Infosys co-founder Kris Gopalakrishnan funding brain research to pharmaceuticals entrepreneur Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw starting a laboratory for frontier biology in 2022 to pursue cutting-edge research and innovation in bio-sciences.

At least half-a-dozen other tech billionaires, especially from Bengaluru - often called India's Silicon Valley - have pledged significant amounts for everything from robotic astronomy to multi-specialty medical research in recent years.

The trend appears to reflect a growing recognition among the well-heeled that science and long-term national competitiveness are closely linked, say experts.

"No great nation has thrived without a deep scientific base. And we believe India produces great minds. So it's not for a shortage of talent that this has not yet taken off, but a shortage of infrastructure," Abhishek Lodha, CEO of the Lodha Group, told the BBC.

"We hope people can spend years doing high-quality research at our institute, and this ecosystem can over time lead to innovation, commercialisation and then technology."

Lodha said he has earmarked $100mn over the next eight to 10 years to get the institute off the ground.

Such donations comes at a pivotal point in India's developmental stage, where there are growing concerns that the country has fallen behind in cutting-edge frontier innovation in areas such as artificial intelligence and robotics.

India's gross expenditure on research and development - at 0.6-0.7% , externalof GDP - is also way below countries like China, South Korea and the US, with its private sector accounting for only 36% of this compared with more than 70% in other major developed economies.

Shaw, who has been funding a plethora of other initiatives advancing science across India and globally, admits the country has fallen short on amassing philanthropic capital to support pure sciences and "let our academic institutions languish, because they would only get limited government support".

"All great academic institutions in the world from Harvard to MIT and Stanford have been built with philanthropic support. In India the whole approach so far has been that this is the government's job," Shaw said.

But that's now changing.

While several decades ago business groups like the Tatas pioneered American-style philanthropic giving to research in India, creating landmark academic institutions like the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR) in Mumbai and the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) in Bengaluru, there was a significant gap in between. It is only after a long interlude that private giving to science has picked up pace.

The trend is largely being driven by "Inter-Gen (current generation of traditional family philanthropists) and Now-Gen (first-time wealth creators) givers", Neera Nundy, co-founder at Dasra, an organisation that helps companies drive their philanthropic strategies, told the BBC.

"This cohort is more tech-driven, data-oriented, and outcomes-focused, which naturally aligns with investments in science, innovation, and research-led solutions."

But according to Nundy, despite several high-value, strategic commitments, philanthropic funding to science and innovation in India remains relatively small compared with sectors like education and healthcare, which continue to dominate overall flows.

Given a low per-capita income and massive competing developmental priorities, this isn't surprising.

Indian research is also hamstrung by poor industry-academia connect and a crisis of quality in higher education - where there is a widening gap between what universities produce and what research or industry requires.

However, the potential for science-led giving is significant, she says.

"Families alone are estimated to have an additional giving upside of $14-15bn by FY30. The extent to which science benefits from this will depend on how effectively the ecosystem evolves, particularly in terms of institution-building and creating credible pipelines for large-scale, long-term scientific investments," Nundy adds.

Sectors where philanthropic initiatives have direct synergies with business, such as pharmaceuticals, ought to take a lead, says Shaw.

"India's pharma companies are not doing cutting-edge research. But the next value-creation opportunity for them lies in innovative drugs, for which a lot more funding needs to come into research institutions."

As Asia's third largest economy climbs up the development ladder, there's no doubt this will happen, says Lodha.

"This is an evolution. A society in need of upliftment was met with philanthropy of service and now naturally you'll see the trend shift to philanthropy of excellence."

Follow BBC News India on Instagram, external, YouTube,, external X, external and Facebook, external.