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Poor countries often learn little from international research partnerships that are linked to the priorities of the developed country, or are dominated by its researchers, according to a report from a Netherlands development think-tank.

In contrast, they can gain much from North-South research networks that offer clear benefits to all participants, and not just developing-country partners, says the report from the European Centre for Development Policy Management (ECDPM).

The report adds that the most successful partnerships are self-funded, either through membership fees or income from contract work, and do not rely unduly on support from aid agencies. It recommends that North-South research activities could learn from the experience of successful research partnerships between developing countries.

It also points out that research partnerships have been slow to use the Internet to share information, partly because Internet connections in some of the poorest countries are not well developed.

The report's authors are Louk Box, director of ECDPM, and Rutger Engelhard, an independent consultant. They wrote it for a meeting of the Geneva-based United Nations Commission on Science and Technology for Development last month.

More effective research partnerships is one of several priority areas on which the commission is working. Others include biotechnology for development and a ‘vision statement’ on the future of science and technology for development.

The report recommends that research partnerships should be organized around a common scientific interest that provides researchers from developed countries with a stimulating intellectual challenge, but is also “strongly embedded in the Southern social, economic and cultural context”.

For example, the European Tropical Forest Research Network, established by the European Commission in 1991, contributes to the conservation of forests. But it also enables scientists to exchange information on tropical forestry research.

“The identification of a concrete, widely shared problem or goal is one of the key pillars supporting networks,” says the report. “Networks that fail to develop such a focus do not survive their infant years.”

In addition, the report says that Southern partners need to be involved in the management of the research. In return, Southern members must give a “strong commitment” to making the partnership a success.

The report says much has improved since the 1960s and 1970s, when donor agencies from the richer countries engaged in scientific collaboration largely “to implement their own agendas”. But it says that changes are difficult to bring about within existing partnerships as “Southern partners are often insufficiently organized to collectively assess their needs and present their agendas”.

Full text: http://helix.nature.com/wcs/a37.html