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Bassirou Bonfoh: Within the NCCR North-South, we have developed transdisciplinary research. Knowing that different actors have used the results, our researchers wanted to publish and show how their research was relevant. Yet, it is difficult to find a journal that accepts such papers, because reviewers think that the disciplinary aspect is being diluted in transdisiplinary research. Therefore, we are now working to introduce transdisciplinarity at the university level in order to sensitise our colleagues to the relevance of interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research. How would you react if you were meeting with an Assistant Professor who was setting up his/her research group and establishing a network in the scientific community, and this professor claimed that R4D is not an option for him/her because that would harm his/her career? 24 FOCUS Research for Focus development Experimental herd (F2 crossbreed from N’Dama and Boran) with visiting scientists, Kenya Workshop with farmers at ICARDA, Aleppo, Syria Urs Wiesmann: That is valid for 99% of all scientists. We cannot claim that everyone has to go into R4D. You might also go into a very specialised field to gain in-depth methodological and topical knowledge, and then you can open up to interdisciplinary research, and perhaps go back again. I even think that iteration in the career is crucial, because there is one great danger with R4D: That it is not up-to-date, not focusing on the newest trends in theory and methodology. R4D might also have the tendency to become a bit amateurish because, for example, you have to simplify for policies. This is why one of our very basic credos in the NCCR North-South is: Without a very sound disciplinary foundation, you cannot make R4D and you cannot make transdisciplinary research. Isabel Guenther: I think R4D should not only be seen as interdisciplinary research. R4D covers also very specialised and up-to-date technology research such as in the area of solar energy, for example. And, I agree with Urs that in R4D we should not pursue simplfied research so that policymakers could understand it more easily. This is why there needs to be a mechanism to translate research into policy. Research in R4D has the same quality standards as any other research discipline. To convince an Assistant Professor to engage in R4D, you could highlight that he/she could be working in scientific field that deals with – as Urs put it – “real-world problems”. Barbara Becker: I think this is a tricky question, to give guidance on career planning. In some disciplines you run into trouble: if you want to pursue a career in R4D – you have to make sacrifices. First, my advice would be that one should pursue his or her own personal objectives. If this
means sacrificing certain career perspectives while still maintaining one’s personal career, then I think it is justified. However, sometimes one could also first focus on disciplinary qualifications and later expand into other fields such as R4D – a sequential approach. In my view, there is a tradeoff between pursuing a career in R4D and trying to get rapid achievements in one’s own professional career. Isabel Guenther: I am not so sure if there is always a tradeoff. I agree that first one should pursue the questions that one finds interesting and relevant. But, I think there are always cases where a certain research topic is more fashionable, resulting in impressive publication lists, while other topics do not bring the fastest rewards. However, this is nothing specific for R4D, but it is true for any discipline. I do not agree that one necessarily has to make a trade-off between R4D and a career in science. Bassirou Bonfoh: At the NCCR North-South, we are building the capacity of a new generation of scientists who are doing R4D. To get into R4D you have to prove that you have done basic research. Jumping directly into R4D is very difficult if you are not specialised before broadening your view by involving other disciplines or society in your research. Urs Wiesmann: Nevertheless, it is very interesting that at your university you try to include courses in transdisciplinarity and interdisciplinary methodology. Parallel to the disciplinary education, you can build a foundation for R4D. An additional important tension exists between conventional research and R4D. In conventional research, you get more famous the more general and the more generally applicable your result is. In contrast, R4D is then relevant when it is contextualised. The links between poverty and global market, or biodiversity and climate change appear in each context differently. The subsequent problems are different – related to different value systems and different stakes. Barbara Becker: In a way it comes back to what you said earlier about disciplinary research that has to be embedded in a larger programme in order to put it into perspective. For example, doctoral theses answer limited questions, leading to an academic degree. They usually consist of rather narrow disciplinary research not covering the entire continuum. In addition, doctoral theses in R4D are often highly demanding because they involve field research under very difficult conditions – compared to the lab situation at the university. This could be another trade-off. In addition, because our university environment or our research community does not award interdisciplinary research or impact generation – as has been said before – I wonder how one can influence this award system, the Isabel Guenther Isabel Guenther is Assistant Professor for Development Economics at the NADEL, ETH Zurich. She had previously been research associate at the Faculty of Development Economics of the University of Goettingen and at the Harvard School of Public Health. Her main research interest is in empirical microeconomics with a particular focus on measurement of poverty under uncertainty, health and population economics, economics of water and sanitation, and the effectiveness of development aid. Isabel Guenther has carried out most of her research in Mali, Benin, Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, and South Africa. See more information on NADEL on p. 90 criteria by which you judge quality of research. Isabel Guenther: With regard to interdisciplinarity: Interdisciplinarity is not that somebody engages in various disciplines. But, you learn how to look at a problem from several perspectives, how to work and discuss with people from other disciplines, how to understand other disciplines and trying to take them into account. Barbara also mentioned the challenge of doing research involving fieldwork in developing countries, which is much more time-consuming than doing other kinds of research. I think that this is a problem if research is only measured in how many papers one is producing in the short-term. In my eyes, the quality of research is not only defined by how many papers one is writing. Bassirou Bonfoh: In our evaluation system, an African evaluation system of academics, we have different kind of indicators for evaluating the quality of research: The publications, the number of projects you can mobilise, and newly introduced “fiches techniques”, as we call them in French. If you want to transfer your research findings to the community or a single user, you can develop a leaflet that could be used for sensitisation or information of the research users. Such 25 FOCUS Research for development
Page 1 and 2: NORTH-SOUTH CENTRE Research for Dev
Page 3 and 4: Editorial The year 2009 marked a mi
Page 5 and 6: Table of contents Profile . . . . .
Page 7 and 8: Moving in a dynamic environment Bey
Page 9 and 10: caused by bacteria in East African
Page 11 and 12: topics, which cut across the four t
Page 13 and 14: In the area of Networking and commu
Page 15 and 16: The core of the North-South Centre
Page 17 and 18: The North-South Centre at a glance
Page 19 and 20: The North-South Centre at a glance
Page 21 and 22: FOCUS: Research for development Wha
Page 23 and 24: e direct in the sense that you have
Page 25: Bassirou Bonfoh: I agree with you.
Page 29 and 30: makers. R4D allows for explaining t
Page 31 and 32: academic community and by explicitl
Page 33 and 34: The success story In some quarters,
Page 35 and 36: Research collaboration The North-So
Page 37 and 38: Livestock systems research in suppo
Page 39 and 40: New policy mechanisms to mitigate w
Page 41 and 42: Reversing soil degradation by tropi
Page 43 and 44: Improving small ruminant productivi
Page 45 and 46: Zinc fluxes from the soil into the
Page 47 and 48: The partnership between UNEP and th
Page 49 and 50: top-down approach using globally av
Page 51 and 52: Urban Laboratory - Addis Ababa Acto
Page 53 and 54: Assessing sustainable urban develop
Page 55 and 56: Nutrient dynamics in conservation a
Page 57 and 58: Research projects related to develo
Page 59 and 60: Project leader(s) Project title Pro
Page 65 and 66: Capacity development Individual cap
Page 67 and 68: Research Fellow Partnership Program
Page 69 and 70: Understanding yam (Dioscorea spp.)
Page 71 and 72: Analysis and initial exploitation o
Page 73 and 74: Mycorrhizas and maize yields in dif
Page 75 and 76: The role of cooperativeness in adop
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Governance, collective action and d
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The importance of forest fragments
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Phosphate nutrition of crops in lix
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Whole genome profiling of Theileria
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Farmers’ responses to climate cha
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Improving grazing systems with yak-
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Preparing a joint project at the In
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Colloquium “Selected aspects of s
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Master of Advanced Studies in Susta
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Teaching activities related to deve
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Title of course unit Lecturer(s) Ty
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Supervision of doctoral dissertatio
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Supervisor(s) Candidate Title of No
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Networking and communication Doing
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Conferences, lectures and workshops
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Environmentally forced migration an
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Networking The North-South Centre i
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As peers we interact mainly with th
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Germany. We did not only contribute
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Publications Refereed publications
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Koh, L.P., 2009: Calling Indonesia
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Frame Conditions for the Sustainabl
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Andrade de Sa, S., Palmer, C., Enge
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Clément, C., 2009: The Maca projec
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Contzen, S., 2009: Views of the rur
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components and indigenous arbuscula
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Financial statements Administrative
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Impressum Publisher North-South Cen
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ETH Zurich North-South Centre HCW,
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