Knowledge to Policy:
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Development research, influence and governance
Maureen O’Neil

For almost 40 years now, my own organization, the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), has been supporting development research in developing countries. So you are addressing, in your own discussions, questions that go to the core of IDRC’s founding purpose and parliamentary mandate.

Canadian universities have built a long tradition of collaboration in research and scholarship in developing countries around the world. But as you have rightly recognized in your work this week, the dynamics of development and development research—and of North-South cooperation—have undergone radical changes in recent years.

For one thing, the time has passed when the South could be treated as a more-or-less passive object of study by Northern researchers. In many developing countries, Southern researchers are earning and asserting global leadership in the discovery and application of new knowledge. Indeed, this phenomenon reflects IDRC’s enduring mission—to support research in developing countries, by the researchers of those countries, to advance the progress of their own development.

The second reality to be acknowledged in the dynamics of North-South research is our stronger understanding that rich and poor countries, more and more, share common problems—whether in the globalization of infectious diseases, or climate change, or the risky turbulence of interconnected financial markets.

Global Imperative

Confronting these problems is a shared, global imperative. But that is not to say we should always be looking for (or expecting) global solutions. On the contrary, solving many of these problems will usually proceed by improving domestic public policy, whether it be in a developing country or a wealthy democracy.

Of course, much can be done to improve global governance. But as a practical matter, and for the foreseeable future, the governance that will count most for development is domestic governance. This means that researchers interested in promoting sustainable and democratic development must think strategically about improving the quality of governance in their own country. And this brings me to my central point. To improve lives, especially the lives of poor people, development research will almost always have to influence policy in order to influence development. In short, getting a new research discovery into policy and practice is just as important—just as urgent—as getting to the discovery itself.

Now, I am happy to affirm that influencing public policy is certainly not the only proper objective of research in a university setting. But, more often than not, policy influence is a necessary objective of development research. And I dare say that promoting development inspires a large part of your energies and efforts in engaging with your developing-country colleagues.

Development Research

So I return to my argument. Development research, to have effect, must sooner or later influence government policy and action.

This is not, on reflection, a very controversial observation. What is remarkable, therefore, is how little is understood by researchers—in universities or anywhere else—about how to insert their research and discoveries into the policy processes of their own country.

The stark fact is that tens of millions of dollars have been invested in research on development in the last several decades, and yet—until recently—hardly any attention has been given to whether, or how, the research is actually influencing public policy.

Some years ago, IDRC set out to fill in that knowledge gap. We undertook a large-scale multi-year, multi-case strategic evaluation to uncover how research supported by IDRC had—or had not—affected public policy and decision-making.

The results have been illuminating—and a little unsettling. We have already published some of the findings, and a comprehensive summing-up will be presented in a forthcoming book.

But let me share with you some insights from the evaluation that might be helpful in your own endeavours.

First of all, there are no “best practices” when it comes to influencing policy with research. Each circumstance in each country is different, and will call for a particular strategic approach.

And this is the second lesson learned: Research teams—donors, Canadian partners, developing-country researchers themselves—need to build policy considerations into their development research projects from start to finish, from conception to completion.

They need to see their own work as one part of the policy process. Which is to say, they need to form some understanding of the politics and procedures of policy-making—the obstacles and opportunities for influencing policy, the needs and preferences of policymakers, the interplay of bureaucrats and politicians, and the various levels of government that contend for authority and resources in any country, rich or poor.

Researchers aiming to influence policy need to sense the flow of events. We have learned, for example, that countries in transition (I am thinking of Vietnam and South Africa, among others) can present sudden openings for researchers to influence policy in new directions. Sometimes researchers exert influence by becoming policymakers themselves.

But influence does not happen reliably by accident. It happens with greatest effect when the intent to influence policy informs the design of the research, its execution, and its communication to the policy community.

Communication is crucial, again at every stage of research. Researchers can profitably engage with policymakers early in a project’s design—absorbing from policy people how they see their own policy problems, and alerting them to the advantages of evidence-based solutions. As research findings emerge, those early investments in relationship-building can pay off in later access to decision-makers and administrators.

Lasting Influences

And there is another lesson in our evaluation. In the end, influence that is lasting, that produces real change, is not about affecting a singular policy, or statute or regulation.

Lasting influence for development is about expanding the capacity of the policy community—the capacity to analyze and convert new knowledge into practical policy and action.

Research achieves lasting influence by broadening policy horizons—introducing the policy community to new ways of thinking about, and resolving, their own policy problems. Quite often, research can break policy deadlocks and zero-sum stalemates by creating entirely new policy options.

And research achieves lasting influence by improving the procedures of decision-making—for governance that is more open, more informed, more effective, and more accountable. This is influence that endures, by promoting development that is sustainable and democratic.

Influence like this is all the more powerful when the research has been designed and carried out with participation of local communities. Drawing on indigenous knowledge, informing communities with the fresh knowledge to hold governments to account—this is how research can empower people to make their own development progress.

For most of us in the North, and especially in Northern universities, all of these dynamics establish the inescapable logic of research networks and other forms of partnerships. Experience proves how North-South partnerships can capture economies of scale, assemble and disseminate diversities of knowledge, mobilize public opinion, and help to secure influence with policymakers.

Research and learning, by their nature, are almost always collaborations. Partnerships serve to organize these collaborations for better effect. Sometimes research partnerships work best when they include members of the policy community—people who can help frame practical questions, and give effect to practical answers.

I will offer a specific example of IDRC’s own close and extensive partnerships with Canadian scholars and universities. Last month, Ryerson University’s Centre for Studies in Food Security launched a Web-based distance-education course called “Understanding Urban Agriculture.” The course has been developed by Dr. Joe Nasr, a former IDRC project coordinator, in collaboration with a Dutch-based resource centre which itself receives IDRC funding. Moreover, the course content draws heavily on IDRC materials, including a book on urban farming, all accessible online. And because of strong demand from students in Canada and in developing countries, more courses in urban agriculture are now being planned at Ryerson.

Successful Partnership Models

At IDRC, encouraged by such innovations, we have been re-examining successful partnership models, and experimenting with new approaches. And we have dramatically increased the opportunities for North-South cooperation, adding new money—and new programs—to support collaborations between Canadian scholars and Southern researchers. Let me mention just a few.

Some of you are familiar with the Global Health Research Initiative. GHRI is a partnership of four Canadian agencies—Health Canada; the Canadian Institutes of Health Research; IDRC; and CIDA, the Canadian International Development Agency. GHRI funds and facilitates innovative, interdisciplinary research and training in the health priorities of low- and middle-income countries. The object is to build research capacity, both in developing countries and in Canada. The Teasdale-Corti Health Research grants—a centrepiece of GHRI—has been funded with $12.8 million from IDRC (and a matching amount from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research) with a focus on such issues as the control of pandemics, and the interactions of human health with the environment.

I would also mention the International Partnership Initiative, launched by IDRC and the Networks of Centres of Excellence. As you know, the Networks of Centres of Excellence program is a unique partnership of government departments and agencies, universities, industry and not-for-profit organizations. The International Partnership Initiative supports linkages between the NCEs and developing-country researchers. IDRC has committed up to $2 million to this Initiative over five years, and the NCEs have committed up to $5 million. By way of example: Here at York, Professor Jianhong Wu is leading a Canadian-Chinese collaboration in producing mathematical models for the spread of diseases such as Asian flu and tuberculosis.

The third arrangement I would mention is the International Community-University Research Alliance Program, set up last year by IDRC and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. The object here is precisely to invest in teams of Canadian and developing-country researchers engaging directly with local communities in developing countries. The program is encouraging research in areas such as natural resource management, information and communication technologies for development, poverty reduction, and human rights. The Council and IDRC have each made five-year, $3-million commitments to these international Alliances.

And finally, there is the International Research Chairs Initiative, jointly organized by IDRC and the Canada Research Chairs Program. This is an initiative just launched in December last year, and will pair leading researchers from Canadian universities with counterparts in developing countries. These teams will address research questions of significance both to Canada and to the developing world. IDRC’s own commitment to the International Research Chairs—matching that of the Canada Research Chairs Program—is $5 million.

These are sizeable programs, by any measure. But IDRC is agile enough to respond at a much smaller scale when special opportunities arise.

To cite another York University example: Professor Stuart Shanker is leading a team of Canadian, Mexican and Cuban researchers to better understand the impressive performance recorded by Cuba’s program of early childhood education. This is a model of family-integrated childhood development that has yielded far better scholastic results—and fewer developmental problems—than one might expect from Cuba’s social-economic profile. Professor Shanker’s research can inform policy well beyond Cuba. In fact, he took a group of Canadian Senators to Cuba not long ago to see for themselves how Cuban lessons might be applied here. IDRC is providing $100,000 to the Shanker team to support a pilot study and help embark on a larger research project.

In conclusion, I hope you will allow me simply to salute your own work with partners in developing countries. These are the collaborations that can generate new knowledge for real influence—and better governance for better futures.


Author's Information


Maureen O’Neil

Maureen O’Neil is the president if the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) in Ottawa, Canada.

© 2008 Maureen O’Neil. All rights reserved. Used with permission.

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