The National Innovation Foundation was set up in March 2000 with a corpus fund of Rs.20 crore. Due to reduced income in real terms as a result of declining interest rates coupled with inflationary pressures, the mode of financing the activities of NIF was changed from a corpus fund financed society to a regular grant-in-aid institution under the Department of Science and Technology.

The proposal would enhance the quantum of resources matching the innovation potential of grassroots innovations for inclusive growth. The proposal would provide appropriate level of investments for deepening market worthy innovations after due diligence and linkages to market place. One of the major impacts would be promotion of innovations at affordable cost and enhanced value to the innovators and to the society.

The main objectives of the proposal include the positioning the country as an innovative and creative society and a global leader in sustainable technologies by scouting, spawning and sustaining grassroots innovations; evolution and diffusion of green grassroots innovations in a time bound and a mission oriented manner so as to meet the socio-economic and environmental needs of our society; facilitate scaling up of grassroots innovations and traditional knowledge with or without value addition through commercial and/or non-commercial channels; influence public policy and conduct, coordinate and support research, design and development efforts in the country on grassroots innovations; and enable protection of the intellectual property rights of the knowledge holders wherever applicable and upholding their Prior Informed Consent (PIC) before transferring their technology to any third party.

BACKGROUND

NIF has provided hand-holding support to thousands of creative people in the country in a number of ways. More than 225 patents on grassroots informal innovations have already been filed and around 40 technologies based on innovations or pooling of folkloric traditional knowledge practices have been licensed to various entrepreneurs and small companies.