Make in India, Atmanirbhar Bharat, and the MNRDC – How Parul University’s Research Centre Is Building India’s Nanotechnology Self-Reliance

For decades, a structural dependency defined Indian material science research: the most critical analytical instruments scanning electron microscopes, X ray diffractometers, atomic force microscopes were manufactured in Germany Bruker, Carl Zeiss, Japan Hitachi, JEOL, Switzerland Nanosurf, and the USA Veeco, Bruker. Not only did Indian universities have limited access to these instruments, but even those with instruments often lacked the full characterisation portfolio needed for rigorous research. The result: researchers and industries sent samples overseas or to a handful of well equipped central facilities, waiting weeks to months for results.

This dependency had concrete consequences. Research timelines stretched a PhD that should take four years extended to five or six because sample characterisation was a bottleneck. Industry product development slowed a pharmaceutical company validating a new formulation waited three months for SEM data when a domestic testing lab in Vadodara could deliver the same in 10 days. India was spending foreign exchange on research infrastructure services that could with sufficient government investment be provided domestically. The Industries Commissionerate, Government of Gujarat recognised this and funded the MNRDC as a direct response.

The Make in India mission, launched in 2014, explicitly extends to research and development infrastructure. The Department of Science and Technology, SERB, CSIR, and the Industries Commissionerate’s research funding schemes all reflect the same underlying logic: India must build the domestic scientific infrastructure needed to develop, characterise, and manufacture advanced materials without depending on overseas facilities. The MNRDC’s ₹1.49 crore founding grant and ₹1.17 crore CoE grant are direct expressions of this policy in Gujarat.

The instruments the MNRDC operates while manufactured in Japan and Germany because no comparable Indian made alternatives yet exist are owned and operated domestically. The testing expertise, the research outputs, the industry relationships, and the doctoral training they enable all stay in India. Each of the 897 SEM samples and 600 XRD samples analysed at the MNRDC represents a sample that did not need to travel to a foreign facility for characterisation a small but concrete measure of growing domestic research self reliance.

India’s space programme has historically sourced advanced materials from international suppliers a dependency that creates supply chain risk for mission critical components. The ISRO funded SMA research at the MNRDC directly addresses this: developing and characterising Shape Memory Alloy components for space applications using Indian university infrastructure, domestic expertise, and government funding. If successful, MNRDC characterised SMA components could eventually be qualified for use in ISRO missions making India’s space hardware less dependent on imported smart materials.

India’s 5G and 6G telecommunications infrastructure depends on antenna technology predominantly developed by foreign companies. The CSIR funded metamaterial MIMO antenna project at the MNRDC works toward changing this developing next generation antenna designs using Indian university research facilities, Indian machine learning expertise, and domestic fabrication capabilities. The planned CSIR funded RF Anechoic Chamber will enable antenna performance validation that currently requires sending prototypes to overseas testing facilities.

India’s National Green Hydrogen Mission targets 5 million metric tonnes of annual production by 2030 but achieving this requires domestic development of efficient, low cost electrolyser catalysts. The MNRDC’s Royal Academy of Engineering UK funded NiFeP@Ni nanotube research published in Renewable Energy journal, IF 9.1 represents exactly the kind of domestic catalyst R&D that India needs to achieve this mission without depending entirely on imported electrolyser technology.

The MNRDC’s establishment in Vadodara positions Gujarat’s industrial capital as an emerging nanotechnology research hub complementing the state’s established pharmaceutical, chemical, and engineering manufacturing base with the advanced characterisation infrastructure those industries need. Gujarat’s Industries Commissionerate, by funding both the MNRDC and the CoE, is explicitly investing in the research infrastructure that will support the next generation of Gujarat’s industrial competitive advantage not just making things, but making them better by understanding them at the nanoscale.