The publication of the WRR report at the start of 2010 inspired the public debate on development cooperation, in result of which many meetings have been organised as well as a large online discussion at The Broker. Because the WRR makes specific recommendations about the knowledge infrastructure for development (e.g. greater investments, coordination and Southern participation), DPRN decided to choose this particular niche in the discussion for the process in 2010.
Issue paper & workshop
In the period May-June 2010, 17 professors of development studies and related disciplines were asked about their opinions with regard to the future knowledge agenda and infrastructure for development. The results were published in an issue paper (in English), written by the DPRN Task Force secretariat (Kim de Vries & Mirjam Ros). The paper served as input for a discussion during the CERES-EADI Summer School on 24 June 2010. The paper was published in July 2010 and touched on the following issues:
- The extent to which the scientific knowledge agenda should be policy-oriented
This revealed a certain dilemma. While most of the respondents were positive about a more strategic and clearly focussed knowledge agenda for development, some of them also stressed the need for a certain degree of scientific autonomy in setting research priorities, and warned against an excessive focus on policy-oriented research. In particular, the policy agenda, which focuses largely on a few Millennium Development Goals, was generally considered too insignificant to serve as a basis for a research agenda.
- The research needs identified for studying development
Whereas most interviewees sympathised with the view expressed in the WRR report that research should support development as a process of accelerated growth guided by a stable and responsive state, some critical remarks were also made. Respondents advocated interdisciplinary research into the relationships between economic growth and environmental sustainability, redistribution and institutional processes, state responsiveness and stability, and bottom-up social development. The general view is that a less normative outlook, which takes account of the interlinkages of scales, would lead to an improved understanding of development processes.
- The Dutch knowledge that is available for the development agenda in the coming years
In the eyes of the respondents, Dutch knowledge in various areas (e.g. agriculture and food production, water, law & justice, health & infectious diseases, civil society, and the 3D approach) could certainly contribute to more specialised development policies, but they stressed that defining major strategic questions should precede this choice of thematic areas. This might, in turn, result in different thematic and geographic focus areas than those advocated by the WRR.
- The research infrastructure that would be most appropriate as regards realising this agenda.
According to the respondents, the Dutch knowledge infrastructure needed to implement this agenda should be characterised by coordination in the form of strategic funding of networks by NWO/WOTRO and an aligned knowledge agenda at the various ministries involved in international cooperation. Investing in regional networks in the South and long-term partnerships with Southern research institutes are also important factors, although there might be a tension between capacity development and academic excellence. Lastly, transdisciplinary initiatives should be strengthened so as to increase knowledge of context-specific innovations, with more attention for the ways scientific research can best be communicated to other actors.
Conference
The discussion of the future knowledge agenda and infrastructure for DC/IC is to be continued in cooperation with WOTRO and the MDG-Profs platform, and is intended to lead to the organisation of a conference at the end of 2010.
Timeline 2010
