Published Jul 20, 2026 | 7:00 AM ⚊ Updated Jul 20, 2026 | 7:00 AM
The draft proposes India's first comprehensive framework for governing health research. (iStock)
Synopsis: The Centre’s draft National Health Research Policy 2026 proposes a major shift in the research and evaluation of medical research. It prioritises public health impact over publications, besides introducing a National Health Research Agenda, ambitious 2047 targets, governance reforms, and measures to simplify research while strengthening ethics, innovation and accountability.
What if a scientist’s success is measured not by the number of papers published or patents filed, but by whether the work brought about a change in preventing diseases or in the functioning of hospitals?
That is the central question the Union government’s draft National Health Research Policy 2026 seeks to answer.
Released for public consultation by the Department of Health Research under the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, the draft proposes India’s first comprehensive framework for governing health research.
More than a document on funding or laboratories, it attempts to redefine what health research should achieve, placing public health impact above academic output while setting an ambitious roadmap to make India one of the world’s top three countries in health sciences research by 2047. The government has invited comments from the public until 27 July.
The draft argues that while India’s health research ecosystem has expanded considerably over the past few decades, its outcomes have not kept pace. Research remains concentrated in a handful of institutions, priorities are often disconnected from the country’s health needs, and evidence does not consistently translate into better healthcare or public policy.
“The National Health Research Policy 2026 addresses these challenges by treating health research not as a collection of isolated studies, grants, publications, or technologies, but as a national problem-solving system,” the draft states.
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The biggest departure from existing practice is how the government wants research to be evaluated.
“The policy moves India’s health research ecosystem from fragmentation toward architecture, from output alone toward impact, and from isolated capability toward coordinated national strength,” the draft says.
Traditionally, research performance has largely been assessed through publications, citations, grants and patents. The proposed framework retains those indicators but argues that they capture only part of a study’s value.
Instead, it says research should also be judged by whether it influences government policy, improves clinical practice, develops indigenous technologies, strengthens institutions, builds research capacity and ultimately benefits communities.
“Publications, grants, patents, and rankings remain important, but they are incomplete measures,” the policy notes. “The policy also values clinical translation, policy influence, indigenous technologies, institutional strengthening, mentorship, capacity-building, community benefit, equity, and societal impact.”
The same philosophy underpins the document’s core commitments, which state that research priorities should be guided by disease burden, health system challenges, preparedness and equity rather than academic interest alone.
It also promises progressively higher public investment in research, stronger shared infrastructure and fewer administrative hurdles that delay scientific work.
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Among the most significant institutional reforms is the creation of a National Health Research Agenda, which would become the country’s central mechanism for deciding what health problems deserve research attention.
Rather than allowing priorities to emerge independently across institutions, the agenda would align research funding with disease burden, scientific opportunity, indigenous innovation and future health threats. It would also be revised periodically through consultations involving states, researchers, patients, communities and frontline health workers.
The draft argues that choosing research priorities should itself become a transparent public exercise.
“In a country of India’s scale and diversity, priorities cannot be left to institutional habit, scattered opportunity, or the momentum of the past,” it says. “They must be guided by population need, equity, scientific promise, strategic national importance, and the lived realities of States, health systems, communities, patients, and frontline workers.”
The proposed agenda extends beyond long-standing health challenges such as tuberculosis, antimicrobial resistance and cancer to include emerging fields like artificial intelligence, climate change and health, obesity, cell and gene therapy, robotics, digital health, healthy ageing and other frontier technologies.
To coordinate the proposed reforms, the draft recommends creating a National Health Research Stewardship Committee (NHRSC), an inter-ministerial body that would be chaired by the Principal Scientific Adviser to the Government of India and convened by the Department of Health Research.
The committee would bring together representatives from government departments, research institutions, academia, industry, health systems and not-for-profit organisations to align research priorities across sectors.
Rather than functioning as another regulatory authority, the policy says the NHRSC would provide strategic direction, improve coordination, reduce procedural bottlenecks, promote the “ease of doing research” and encourage investment and indigenous innovation while respecting the autonomy of existing institutions.
The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) would continue to provide scientific and technical leadership for implementing the National Health Research Agenda.
The draft also asks states and Union Territories to establish or designate State Health Research Stewardship Committees to align national priorities with local health needs and improve the translation of research into state health programmes.
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The policy goes beyond governance reforms by setting measurable national targets to be achieved by 2047.
It proposes increasing health research investment from the current 0.024% of GDP to 0.15%, raising Medical Science PhDs from 1.5 to 15 per million population, and increasing health research publications from 39 to 360 per million people.
It also aims to improve life sciences patents from 2.5 to 25 per million population, raise approved indigenous health technologies from 0.01 to 0.1 per million, and move India’s global standing in health sciences research from 18th to among the world’s top three countries.
At the same time, the document acknowledges that numerical indicators alone cannot reflect the true value of research.
It proposes using the ICMR Impact of Research and Innovation Scale (ICMR-IRIS), a multidimensional assessment framework that would evaluate whether research influences clinical practice, public health, policymaking, indigenous innovation, institutional capacity and broader societal outcomes alongside conventional bibliometric measures.
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A recurring concern throughout the draft is the time researchers lose navigating administrative procedures.
To address this, the policy proposes dedicated Research Administration and Finance Units in research institutions and medical colleges to handle grant management, regulatory approvals, budgeting, intellectual property, collaborations and compliance, allowing scientists to spend more time on research itself.
Institutions would also be encouraged to simplify ethics approvals, procurement procedures and internal financial clearances, while funding agencies would be expected to publish timelines for grant processing and fund release.
The draft further proposes differentiated financial and procurement rules for research institutions, recognising that conventional government procedures are often not suited to scientific research, where delays in hiring, equipment procurement or imports can stall projects.
Alongside easier administration, the policy seeks stronger oversight. It recommends establishing a National Research Integrity Office (NRIO) under the Department of Health Research to promote responsible conduct, support institutions investigating research misconduct, develop guidance on research integrity and publish periodic reports identifying systemic gaps.
It also encourages greater use of the Clinical Trials Registry-India, streamlined ethics review for multicentre studies where appropriate, and updated guidance for artificial intelligence and other emerging technologies in health research.
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The Department of Health Research has invited comments and suggestions on the draft policy until 27 July, after which it is expected to be revised before being finalised.
If adopted, the policy would mark one of the most significant overhauls of India’s health research ecosystem since the creation of the Department of Health Research. Rather than measuring success solely through papers, patents or rankings, it seeks to build a research system whose ultimate test is whether it generates evidence, technologies and policies that improve the health of people.
As the draft concludes, “The measure of this policy will be whether India builds an ecosystem capable of generating the evidence, technologies, implementation learning, and health solutions its people need, and of sharing them responsibly with the world.”
(Edited by Majnu Babu).
