Science and Technology Mailing List Archive

["Paul Mundy" <<address removed>>]

Colleagues:

I'd like to return to the issue of ensuring that research findings reach the 
people who need them.

Research institutes in the developing world put a lot of emphasis on 
publishing articles in scientific journals, and holding conferences and 
seminars. But the only people who can read the journals, or attend the 
conferences, are other scientists. Journals are mostly published in-house, 
so have very limited circulation, and are written in scientific jargon.

Despite all the effort that goes into these journals and conferences, their 
direct contribution to development is close to zero.

Whose job is it to translate from the research language into extension 
materials, mass media, and training courses? Research institutes tend to 
think this is the job of the extension agencies. But extension agencies 
simply do not have the capability to undertake this conversion process. The 
result is that a lot of good research ends up unused, sitting in desk 
drawers and on library shelves.

Researchers, and research institutes, have little incentive to translate 
their findings into a form that normal mortals can understand. In Indonesia, 
for example, researchers are promoted according to a credit-points system. 
An article in a journal fetches 25 credits. An extension article yields a 
single credit. No wonder that researchers spend their time trying to split 
the findings of their latest series of experiments into as many separate 
journal articles as possible ? instead of writing an overall piece 
summarizing the work in a form that extensionists and farmers might be able 
to use.

Some research institutes train staff how to write for a popular audience. 
But they do little to help them find outlets for their work. Public 
awareness units of research institutions are rare, weak, and generally 
staffed by agricultural scientists rather than journalists or media 
professionals. Research institutions produce few publications aimed at 
extensionists, farmers or the public. They work very little with the mass 
media.

Some suggestions for DFID:
- Encourage national research institutions to reward researchers for 
translating research into everyday language.
- Find ways to reward researchers for disseminating innovations, not just 
for developing them.
- Put more emphasis on ensuring that research focuses on critical problems, 
and on ensuring that the solutions are implementable (and are implemented) 
by the people who need them.
- Strengthen the units responsible for public awareness and extension 
liaison in research institutions.
- Expand the target clientele for agricultural research to include NGOs and 
the private sector, not just extensionists and farmers.


Paul Mundy
development communication
<address removed>
www.mamud.com

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