Development research in the United Kingdom won support from three sources this week with the publication of the United Kingdom’s first five year strategy on research, new research funding, and the opening of the UK’s largest academic centre in the discipline.
Speaking at the opening of the London International Development Centre, Douglas Alexander, the secretary of state for international development, stressed the increasingly important role that research would play in providing longer term support to people in developing countries who have to adapt to a changing world.
With increasing food prices very much on his mind Mr Alexander said that he hoped more anticipatory research would help to recognise future challenges and how to deal with them.
“The number of people in hunger is growing for the first time,” he said. Research that focuses on early warning systems could help to prevent such situations in the future and ascertain the benefits that new technology could bring.
As much as £1bn (€1.2bn; $2bn) will be available for development research in the next five years, announced Mr Alexander.
The Department for International Development’s first ever five year research strategy has been shaped after widespread consultation with policymakers, researchers, and community leaders. It focuses on six key areas of research, including sustainable agriculture, climate change, health, and future challenges and opportunities.
The strategy has three interlinked priorities for health research—operational research to make health programmes more effective; research on health systems; and developing drugs and vaccines for HIV and AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria, and other diseases that most affect poor people.
“Our focus will be to ensure that research makes a much greater impact on policy and practice in our partners’ countries and internationally,” says Mr Alexander in his introduction to the strategy.
The London centre will play a unique part in the UK’s research community, he added. However, Mr Alexander warned that although the increase in research funding brought opportunities, it also brought responsibilities. People who work in development research would have to change their values and incentives away from being published and carving an “academic niche” towards “making results more relevant and focused on outcomes that tackle poverty.
“Only by working together can we ensure that we translate research findings into knowledge that can be used to good effect in those countries most in need,” he said.
The centre is a collaborative project by six University of London colleges based in central London—Birkbeck, the Institute of Education, the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, the Royal Veterinary College, the School of Oriental and African Studies, and the School of Pharmacy. It has been established with funds of £3.7m from the Higher Education Funding Council for England’s Strategic Development Fund.
The centre brings together expertise in public health and tropical medicine, animal health, drug and vaccine development, economics, social science, sustainable use of natural resources, social enterprise, and business development.
The centre, based in Gordon Square, Bloomsbury, will help build an evidence base to inform policy and practice and to look beyond short term development objectives, said Andrew Haines, chairman of the centre’s management group.
“Substantial challenges remain to achieving the UN [United Nations] millennium development goals and addressing longer term development issues,” Professor Haines told an audience at the launch of the centre.
“Action is needed by governments and international agencies in conjunction with higher education institutions to establish a robust research base and to develop strong links with partners in low income countries. The range of expertise within the [the London International Development Centre] will be unmatched in the UK and will provide an invaluable source of independent expert advice on international development.”
The research strategy is at www.dfid.gov.uk For information on the London centre see www.lidc.org.uk.
