Bengaluru: Infosys founder N R Narayana Murthy Wednesday called for a national recommitment to building a strong research ecosystem, saying India’s progress depends on its ability to nurture curiosity, imagination, and intellectual freedom. Speaking at the Infosys Prize 2025 ceremony here, he urged policymakers and institutions to create an environment where researchers can “walk the untrodden path and dream the unimaginable”. Murthy said research must be treated as a necessity for “human survival, dignity and progress”, not a luxury. “It is our sacred duty to make this country an aspirational, competitive, and rewarding place for researchers and their families,” he said. Such an environment, he added, should “revere hierarchy of ideas rather than hierarchy of titles and offices” and allow bright minds to pursue daring, curiosity-driven inquiry. Framing research as a moral responsibility, Murthy linked it to the founding ideals of independent India. “Creating such an ecosystem for research is our unfailing duty because, ultimately, research is the only means we have to make India a better nation, and this world a better world,” he further said. “That is how we can fulfil the dreams of our founding fathers — to ensure that the poorest child in the remotest village has access to nutrition, healthcare, shelter, education and an opportunity to lead a fulfilling life.” Invoking Jawaharlal Nehru, whom he described as India’s much-respected intellectual-politician, Murthy, said, while laying the foundation of an important scientific institution, Nehru affirmed the importance of research in the ’50s. He quoted Nehru as having said: “It is science alone that can solve the problems of hunger and poverty, of superstition, and deadening customs and traditions.” Murthy said the responsibility of achieving this vision lies with India’s young scientists, engineers, economists, mathematicians and humanists. Calling research “humanity’s noblest collective enterprise”, he said it demands courage, persistence and imagination, and bridges “science and society, reason and values, and ethics and dignity”. Earlier in his address, Murthy cited historical examples from Franklin Roosevelt’s post-war science policy and drew quotes from thinkers such as Richard Feynman, Alan Turing, Amartya Sen and Jennifer Doudna. “Research,” Murthy concluded, quoting mathematician David Hilbert, “remains the pursuit through which we must know — and we will know.”
