The National Innovation Foundation (NIF) - India was set up by the Department of Science &Technology (DST) in March 2000. The primary objectives are:

1. To help India become an innovative and creative society and global leader in sustainable technologies by scouting, spawning and sustaining grassroots level innovations.
2. To ensure 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.
3. To facilitate scaling up of grassroots innovations and traditional knowledge with or without value addition through commercial and / or non-commercial channels.
4. To influence public policy and conduct, co-ordinate and support research, design and development efforts in the country on grassroots innovations so as to attain and maintain technological competitiveness of farmers, artisans, mechanics etc., in the informal sector.
5. To 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, ensuring in the process a fair and just benefit sharing.
6. To build linkages between excellence in formal scientific systems and informal knowledge systems and create a knowledge network to link various stakeholders through applications of information technologies and also otherwise.
7. To promote wider social awareness and applications of innovations and traditional knowledge and encourage their incorporation in educational curriculum, developmental policies and programs.