Nobel laureate Morten Meldal feels Western nations must learn from India’s innovation funding ecosystem

Meldel, who recently visited India, praised  India’s research funding ecosystem.

Lauding the role played by the Biotechnology Industry Research Assistance Council (BIRAC) in facilitating and financing the innovation project, he told ANI: " BIRAC is an organisation for innovation in India. I think it’s quite impressive what you have actually done here in organising an umbrella organisation that overlooks all the different foundations. The whole innovation process is very much facilitated by this organisation. And it has direct links to the government."

“So this is I think, an important new thing in India that we can learn from in Western countries where funding agencies are sort of independent entities, not coordinated very well. Also, all the different regulations around it and so on. It’s not coordinated. We can learn from that for sure here from India,” he said.

He met Indian Minister  Jitendra Singh and discussed bilateral cooperation in pharmaceuticals and the promotion of chemistry studies among schoolchildren.

Following his meeting, Singh posted on X: "Nobel Laureate Prof Morten Meldal,currently on India visit, called on today. Prof Meldal,who teaches at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark which is the home to one of the world’s largest Insulin producing industry, evinced keen interest in different aspects of Diabetes. The Professor also discussed pharmaceuticals, biotechnology and his area of academics “Bio-orthogonal Chemistry” for which he received the Nobel Prize in 2022."