Higher education, research and innovation ... - unesdoc - Unesco

Berit Olsson and Thandika Mkandawire 29
basis for HERI. As it is often from the more affluent countries that external funding is planned
and possible experts are recruited, it may therefore be difficult to identify and select appropriate
pathways, and to formulate realistic HERI development strategies. Thus there is a need to assemble
and supply information on HERI systems from different parts of the World, a task clearly
linked to UNESCO’s mandate.
4. Why Should Low-Income Countries Invest in Research?
4.1. All Countries Need to Use Research Findings
The need for investments dedicated to building a proper basis for HERI, until recently, has not
been widely recognized by governments in low-income countries or by external funding agencies.
Some argue that relevant research may be better done internationally, and that low-income countries
should rely on research findings produced elsewhere rather than invest in local research.
Naturally, all countries need to draw upon international research findings, and Sweden for
instance produces only a fraction of the scientific findings it actually uses. But Sweden can do this
because of its vital domestic research community, which links into the world of science and
makes it possible for the country to harness global discoveries for social and economic development.
Low-income countries on the other hand, with a weak national research community, have
fewer opportunities to identify, adapt and make use of new knowledge. Sadly, and in many countries,
children still die from diseases that could easily be prevented through the use of internationally
available knowledge.
Obviously, the understanding of various problems and their underlying factors is an important
task for research. Increasing agricultural production for example is more likely to result from
new knowledge than from finding better land; negotiating terms for the exploitation of natural
resources, including mineral resources attractive to foreign investors, requires scientific data collection
and analysis; and local problem formulation is needed in order to choose strategies for
growth, for education and for international relations, not to mention for signing international
treaties and conventions and for weighing their implications. If this is not sufficiently convincing,
most will yet agree that qualified analytical capacity must at least be in place for countries to design
their own development strategies (sometimes referred to as Poverty Reductions Strategies or
PRS), to be used as “ownership”-based frameworks for development cooperation.
4.2. The Usefulness of a National Research Community
The usefulness of a local research community goes far beyond direct research work, and a research
community can facilitate access to informed advice. Decision-makers rarely turn to original
research publications to find out about new resistance to life-saving antibiotics: they turn for
advice to local scientists, who know the literature and can consult international colleagues if need
be. What Prime Minister would accept the testing of an AIDS vaccine on his or her national police
force, as is the case today in Tanzania 6 , without local, qualified scientists to turn to and trust?
Another important role for a domestic research community is the formulation of relevant
questions for research, combining local observations with available literature in order to address
relevant issues. This process also feeds articulated, situated perspectives back to the global scene.