Context

• India’s legacy of innovation stretches deep into its history, spanning disciplines as diverse as metallurgy, medicine, astronomy, and the arts.
• Yet, as the country accelerates towards its vision of becoming a $5 trillion economy, a crucial shift is required, a renewed commitment to creativity and innovation, particularly at the grassroots level.
• The evolving dynamics of the global creative economy offer a compelling case for why India must strategically harness and nurture its rich creative potential. 

The Global Creative Economy: A Rising Force

• Creativity has emerged as a cornerstone of economic growth worldwide.
• According to the Creative Economy Outlook 2024 by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), the global trade in creative services reached a staggering $1.4 trillion in 2022 — a 29% increase since 2017.
• Exports of creative goods also rose by 19%, totalling $713 billion. Collectively, the creative economy now generates over $2 trillion in annual revenues and supports nearly 50 million jobs globally.
• The sector’s most prominent contributors include software services (41.3%), research and development (30.7%), and advertising, market research, and architecture (15.5%).
• These data underscore the transformative impact of creativity-led sectors and the opportunities they offer to emerging economies like India.

India’s Creative Economy: Promise and Paradox

• India has already demonstrated its capacity to contribute meaningfully to the global creative economy.
• In 2019, the country’s creative goods and services exports totalled around $121 billion, with creative services comprising the bulk at nearly $100 billion.
• Within goods, the design sector accounted for 87.5% of exports, while traditional arts and crafts contributed approximately 9%.
• As of 2024, India’s creative industry is valued at $30 billion and employs about 8% of the workforce. Creative exports grew by 20% in the previous year, generating more than $11 billion.
• Despite these impressive figures, the paradox lies in the underutilization of grassroots creativity.
• While urban centres attract substantial investment in traditional creative sectors, there remains a disconnect between rural creativity and its translation into scalable innovation.

Understanding Creativity and Innovation

• Creativity is a precursor to innovation, the spark that ignites novel ideas.
• Research categorises creativity into four types: deliberate-emotional, deliberate-cognitive, spontaneous-emotional, and spontaneous-cognitive.
• Furthermore, creativity may be endogenous (internally motivated) or exogenous (externally triggered), and can arise episodically during crises or climate events.
• Local innovations in India often stem from the deliberate and spontaneous cognitive domains.
• However, the conversion of creative concepts into impactful innovations is stymied by a lack of institutional support and investment.
• While creativity can thrive independently, innovation demands a structured ecosystem for development, scaling, and market integration.

The Way Forward

• Bridging the Creativity-Innovation Gap
  • India’s creative wealth is evident, but its potential is often left unrealised due to the absence of a robust mechanism to convert ideas into tangible innovations.
  • Grassroots organisations like the Grassroot Innovations Augmentation Network (GIAN) have made laudable efforts to spotlight local ingenuity, from pedal-powered washing machines to the MittiCool clay refrigerator.
  • Yet, many such initiatives remain isolated successes without broader institutional or commercial backing.
  • A case study from Indonesia offers an illustrative model.
  • The Antrodam Project, developed by students at Binus School, leveraged biomimicry inspired by Indian Harvester ants and other natural elements to design a flood protection system.
  • This solution, deeply rooted in creative thinking, has the potential for global application, if supported by investments for scale.
• Policy Interventions
  • Enhanced Investment: Direct more capital towards grassroots and informal innovations, including those tackling climate adaptation and sustainable development.
  • IPR Reform: Strengthen intellectual property rights (IPR) frameworks to protect indigenous and community-led innovations.
  • District-Level Initiatives: Expand the successful "One District One Product" initiative to include a parallel "One District One Innovation" program.
  • Public-Private Collaboration: Facilitate partnerships between local innovators, private investors, research institutions, and government bodies to foster innovation pipelines.
• Community-Driven Creativity
  • Despite the climate tech sector in India receiving nearly $2.85 billion in 2023, grassroots innovation receives a disproportionately small share.
  • Redirecting even a fraction of these funds toward community-driven creativity could yield transformative socio-economic and environmental outcomes.

Conclusion

• India’s journey from a historically rich creative civilization to a globally recognised innovation powerhouse hinges on its ability to support creativity at all levels.
• As the global creative economy continues to expand, India must create an enabling environment that bridges the gap between individual creativity and institutional innovation.
• With the right policies, investments, and cultural appreciation, India can ensure that its creative economy not only grows but thrives, from the grassroots to the global stage.