Written evidence submitted by UK Learned
Societies
Thank you for inviting comments on the above
consultation. I am writing on behalf of an informal steering group
of individuals, from various UK learned societies and other organisations,
who have become passionately interested in capacity building in
science and technology for international development. These individuals
have been copied into this email.
We thought that the Committee might be interested
to know that we held a major meeting of UK learned societies on
the 2 June 2009, that discussed how the societies might work effectively
with DFID and other large funding bodies to tackle pressing problems
of science and technology capacity building in developing countries.
The report of the meeting is attached, but we would like to draw
the Committee's attention to the following points that were discussed
and agreed as being of vital importance at that meeting.
1. Funding bodies have tended to disburse
money in large scale grants, in the belief that this has more
impact and to save on administrative costs, rather than giving
out lots of small grants. This is not a bad thing per se where
significant investments into seriously underfunded areas are needed.
However there was a concern that big programmes can come at a
price of being inflexible and strait-jacketed by the agendas of
the funding organisations. Flexible small scale programmes can
be much more effective in addressing real local aspirations. Real
change is effected by committed individuals, and is an organic,
bottom up process heavily based on personal relationships. "Small
is beautiful" programmes and grants can often best suit these
enthusiasts.
2. Local projects aimed at individual scientists
engage creative people who want to get involved. The best initiatives
often start small and are allowed to evolve to meet real local
aspirations. Support should not just be on regional problems but
should also cover fundamental science. Donors should have funding
programmes that can cope with flexibility, diversity and small
applications. The former British Council grant-in-aid funding
for small programmes addressing individual country needs, and
not driven by a rigid UK central agenda, was an example where
this was once achieved very well.
3. Many existing donor funded development
programmes focus on building research institutions. This is not
a bad thing as scientists need labs and jobs. However such programmes
have often been too short term to be sustainable, and have not
considered the participating individuals long term career development
support needs. Here, mentoring opportunities are particularly
important. This is the area where learned societies should be
able to access funding for the long term support of local networks
and their integration into international networks. As long term
clubs of scientists, this is what learned societies do best. We
appreciate that donors might currently find it difficult to commit
for very long periods of time given their short-term financial
cycles, something that Government might help address. Policy makers
and funders need to wake up to the need to support professional
networks as the supporting "glue" for their research
programme and institutional/centres of excellence investments.
With external funding, the learned societies, not for profit organisations
which plough any extra funding they have back into supporting
science, could be the perfect contractors for this. Learned societies
have a big stock of trust with all players in the scientific system
which can be built upon, as they are organisations created by
scientists for scientists, without the taint of overt commercial
interest or governmental politics.
4. In terms of how best to encourage the
growth of local networks, there was a significant consensus that
a very good way would be to facilitate the learned societies of
the North in supporting the learned societies of the South directly.
In this way they can facilitate the organic development of research
and research networks in their countries/regions. Thus supporting
the development of local sister (where one already exists and
just needs to be built up) and daughter (where one has to be created
from scratch) learned societies could be the most productive way
forward. Learned societies do not currently have the funding resources
to achieve this on their own.
We hope that this is helpful and would be happy
to discuss these issues further with the Committee.
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