Four pathways are commonly cited to describe how research will contribute to development: (i) driving economic growth, (ii) increasing human capital, (iii) leading to the development of pro-poor products and technologies and (iv) providing evidence to inform policies and practice. This literature review examines the evidence related to each of these four pathways.
It demonstrates that research does make important and significant contributions to socioeconomic development but that some commonly held assumptions about how research leads to change are not backed up by the evidence. The paper also reviews approaches to calculating the economic impacts of research investments. Most studies suggest that research leads to positive economic returns. However, these studies are sensitive to a range of assumptions and results must be treated cautiously. The paper ends by proposing a theory of change based on the research evidence presented.
Key Findings:
- Economic growth: There is little evidence that public investment in research was a major contributor to the ‘Asian development miracle’. Furthermore, the evidence suggests that the potential for research and innovation to contribute to technology-transfer fuelled growth in low-income countries tends to be overestimated.
- Human capital: There is a great need for the skills which can be developed through involvement in research in low-income countries. Such skills can be built through higher education, although it is unclear whether involvement of higher education institutions in research contributes to teaching standards. In addition, skills can be built by capacity building programmes. However, many such schemes in the past have had mixed impact.
- Products and technologies: Many inventions have had positive impacts on the poor. Public-private partnerships have been particularly successful in funding and incentivising the development of new products and technologies. Some products and technologies have less impact than intended due to a mismatch between the product and actual need.
- Evidence-informed policy and programmes: There are two major ways in which research can inform decision makers: it can inform decisions on specific interventions and it can inform decision makers’ general understanding of the context. There are numerous examples of both types of influence. However the evidence also reveals that there are significant gaps in the capacity, incentives and systems necessary to ensure that research is systematically used in decision-making.
Recommendations:
- Investment is needed in a variety of types of research covering a range of thematic areas. Public funding will be needed to fund research which will not be attractive to private funders. In some cases, public funding can be used to overcome ‘market failures’ and thereby enable private funding (for example in product-development partnerships).
- Effective research capacity building is required to enable high quality research to be carried out. Research capacity needs vary according to sector and geographical location. Research capacity building efforts have had mixed impacts in the past and it will be important that future capacity building programmes learn from the experience of past attempts.
- Stimulation of economic growth requires research to develop new products and technologies. In the short to medium term the research capacity to generate products and technologies is likely to be found in developed and emerging economies while research capacity to adapt technologies to local contexts will be required in low-income countries. In addition, firms in low-income countries need to build their absorptive capacity to enable them to benefit fully from new products and technologies. Tertiary education will play a key role in building this absorptive capacity for the future.
- Developing products and technologies which directly benefit poor people will require research to fully understand the needs and demands of potential users of new products and technologies. In addition, there needs to be research to develop products/technologies to respond to those needs. Tertiary education will play a key role in developing the capacity of future generations to make use of emerging products and technologies.
