Image: Scott Swigart [CC BY-SA 2.0], via Flickr
The idea that a lack of funding is the main barrier for low- and middle-income countries undertaking research is “outdated and inaccurate”, a consultancy report has claimed.
The problems are “much more systematic”, claims the report, published on 12 August by the United Kingdom consultancy, Research Consulting, on behalf of the government’s Department for International Development.
The systemic challenges involve bureaucratic inefficiency, a lack of incentive structures for research, and a lack of commitment to research among both the public and private sectors in the countries, it says.
The report’s authors scoured the literature on interventions to strengthen research systems and organisations in LMICs. Of the 227 studies reviewed by the authors, more than half, 139, were about Africa. Of the rest, 39 were about LMICs in general, and 25 were global in nature.
There was way more emphasis in the literature on problems and challenges than on ways to deal with them. For example, there is plenty of evidence that fragmented science policy frameworks in LMICs undermine their ability to do research, but the review team found no proven strategies for coordinating national research activities.
The report identifies six key problems affecting research in LMICs: research not being seen as important; deficient science policy frameworks; weak links between science and society; poor research management capacity; lack of incentive for research; and poor IT infrastructure.
It also highlights lessons for donors on funding LMIC research while promoting local investment and nurturing long-term sustainability. These include co-producing research agendas with local stakeholders and asking local funders to co-invest in projects to promote ownership.
However, the report also identifies gaps in knowledge about how to strengthen research capacity in LMICs. These include a lack of data on research systems, a lack of evidence about what interventions work, and a lack of evidence on how to fuel research take-up and knowledge transfer.
The main message of the report is that the issues affecting research in LMICs are interconnected, writes Research Consulting’s Lucia Loffreda in a blog post on the consultancy’s website. “We can see that progress on one issue is limited if taken in isolation from the broader context,” she writes.