The Challenge
Scientific progress is essential for addressing the world’s most pressing challenges and advancing prosperity and well-being. This is particularly true in low and middle-income countries (LMICs), where the burden of infectious diseases, food insecurity, and climate change is disproportionately high. Yet, in many LMICs, scientific investment, coordination, capacity, and ultimately the development of home-grown innovative solutions to pressing problems, remain insufficient.
While science can drive sustainable development, and despite the demonstrated high return on investment in these contexts, funding fluctuations and systemic barriers prevent science from having a transformative impact. Scientists in LMICs face resource and institutional constraints, collaboration frictions, limited access to the latest data and technologies, and insufficient opportunities for training and knowledge exchange, all of which are critical for developing a vibrant ecosystem for solving complex problems.
Compounding these issues is a gap in rigorous, data-driven insights on what works in fostering scientific progress in LMICs. Unlike in high-income countries, where research ecosystems are relatively well-resourced, science in developing contexts involves unique constraints and opportunities. Effective policies and programs cannot simply be replicated from wealthier nations—they must be designed with an understanding of local contexts, institutional structures, and needs.
Addressing these challenges requires identifying and testing the best ways to support science that advances progress towards specific critical challenges in LMICs. We can improve how we identify talent, support scientific careers, structure science grantmaking, and translate ideas into impact in these contexts. This demands a new approach—one that generates and disseminates evidence while designing, coordinating, implementing, and scaling effective policies and programs.
Can science for development be more impactful, efficient, and receive the attention it deserves on the global stage? We believe it can.
The Science for Development Center 