Update on Expenditure on Health Research
Lok Sabha reply: Department of Health Research (DHR) budget expansion and rationalised funding architecture via ICMR grants
- The Government reported that DHR budgetary allocation for 2026–27 (Budget Estimates) is higher than the DHR Revised Estimates for 2025–26, with an approximate 24% rise.
- The Government reported that ICMR rationalised and expanded intramural and extramural grant architecture to calibrate grants to scale, maturity, risk and translational stage of proposals.
- The Government reported that ICMR initiated follow-up grants to utilise leads from initial research grants, with regular publication of details on the ICMR ePMS portal.
What happened
In a Lok Sabha written reply, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare stated that the Department of Health Research (DHR) budget allocation is 0.012% of GDP and that the DHR budget has increased over time along with new programmes/initiatives intended to improve the competitiveness and accessibility of health research grants.
Background and earlier position
UPSC can frame the issue as how public health research funding scales up alongside governance changes to make grants more competitive, risk-calibrated and translational. A key exam angle is how grant instruments map to research maturity (early ideas to validation and advanced centres) and how that affects capacity-building, proof-of-concept, and adoption potential.
