NORTH-SOUTH CENTRE - ETH - North-South Centre North-South ...

The benefits
After having discussed the various challenges of R4D, let
us now focus on its benefits. What are the desired outputs
of R4D?
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FOCUS
Research for development
Urs Wiesmann
Urs Wiesmann is a human geographer by profession. He is
the Director of the Centre for Development and Environment
of the University of Bern, and together with Hans Hurni, he
heads the Swiss National Centre of Competence in Research
North-South (NCCR North-South). His main areas of professional
focus are sustainable regional development, natural resources
management and global change particularly in developing and
transition countries, as well as interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary
methodology and its application in the context of
development and environment. Urs Wiesmann has conducted
research in the Swiss Alps, in Africa (Kenya, Tanzania, Madagascar,
Ethiopia, and Morocco), and in Asia (Kyrgyzstan, India,
Laos, and Vietnam).
The NCCR North-South is an innovative research programme
in the fields of global change and sustainable development.
Encompassing a network of over 400 researchers active in
more than 40 countries worldwide, it is dedicated to finding
sustainable, practicable solutions to specific challenges of
global change.
leaflets are now one of the indicators for evaluating
researchers.
Barbara Becker: It would be worthwhile to consider such an
evaluation system for Swiss universities as well.
Urs Wiesmann: I think, another aspect should not be forgotten:
Interdisciplinarity is related to methodological innovation.
However, these innovations are not published enough
because – again – the peers are missing. Not only the relevance
of R4D but also its scientific impact in developing
thoughts, methodologies, and knowledge is important. In
order to strengthen that outcome we have to develop a
community. For example in Switzerland, the few institutions
involved in R4D have to support each other very strongly
and build capacity together.
Barbara Becker: I would like to come back to my earlier comments
on outputs, outcomes and impacts. When we talk
about R4D, I immediately associate impacts such as poverty
alleviation, or income generation. On the output side,
I think of scientific results which are being taken up by a
community outside the immediate research environment.
This could be with a leaflet, as Bassirou said, and also accidentally,
when somebody comes across a publication and
thinks this could be useful for application. Finally, another
desired output is that the research results are relevant in
some way or other, that they describe a technology, methodology,
or product, which has the potential for application
and implementation.
Urs Wiesmann: Outputs – I think that the important point
is that in R4D you have to have a very broad variety of different
forms of output. As said before, you cannot rely on
journals only. Talking of the outcomes, for me the main outcomes
are capacities in dealing with the research-society
interface, or knowledge-society interface. We need to
couple capacity development directly with the research.
Second, that we see development as a global concern, and
build alliances through that. These alliances among researchers
from all over the world are crucial. We have to build
our own programmes and projects and cannot wait for the
donors to provide us with such programmes. Finally, the
vital goal is to have a more knowledge-based and development-relevant
decision-making – so that knowledge and
not just power is the guiding principle of decision-making.
This has something to do with justice in the sense that the
interests of the most part of society and of the future generations
influence decision-making.
Isabel Guenther: I think the benefit of R4D is that you are
not only tackling scientifically interesting research questions,
but also research questions that are relevant for society.
Many researchers do not see that their research could
be applied to a development context. To put R4D on the
screen of many more researchers might be another output
one could aim for. Lastly, and as Urs said, another important
point is that development policies should more often be
based on knowledge, and therefore research.
Bassirou Bonfoh: For me, the benefit of engaging ourselves
in R4D is that we gain legitimacy vis-à-vis the decision-