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Leading the British government in their fight against world poverty

About DFID

Millennium Dev't Goals

Consultations photograph

Consultations
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Basic information: DFID’s Research objectives and portfolio

1. DFID’s research goal, set out in the Research Funding Framework 2005-7, is to contribute to poverty reduction in partner countries by promoting the production and adoption of technologies and policies that will help reduce poverty and achieve the MDGs. The International Development Secretary’s priorities for research are: climate change, killer diseases, sustainable agriculture, water & sanitation and more effective states for the poor. Two-thirds of DFID’s central research funds are devoted to these themes. DFID conducts no long-term research in-house. The role of Central Research Department is to identify and manage research that it believes will provide the best rates of return for poverty reduction.

2. DFID’s objectives are for research to be problem led and responsive to users; to increase developing country capacity to do research and to get research into use.1 Other objectives relate to positioning: DFID wants to use its funds to leverage additional international funding for international development research and get wider collaboration with UK science. (A UK Collaborative for Development Sciences was recently established for this latter purpose.)2

3. DFID’s budget for centrally funded research is £116 million in 2006/7, rising to £220 million by 2010. Traditionally, sustainable agriculture and health have accounted for around 70% of investment, but the programme on climate change and environmental issues is growing rapidly.

4. DFID funds the following types of research: 3

Basic, strategic and translational, including clinical trials

Applied, adaptive and implementation research

Developmental - research into use and communication with end users

Capacity building to do and use research

Research dissemination and synthesis

5. Funds are channelled through a number of modalities, the distribution between each being roughly as follows:

(i) Multilateral Core-funded 44%

(ii) Bilateral/directly managed
- UK Research Councils (mainly responsive mode) 20%
- Research Programme Consortia (28 in total) 15%
- Other directly managed projects 13%

(iii) Joint/ collaborative (e.g. with IDRC) 8%

6. Research is funded in the following areas:

Development socio-economics and governance: around £6.7 million in 2006/07

Bilateral	Collaborative/joint	Multilateral
Future states		UN Research Institute for Social Development
Crisis states
Chronic poverty
Citizenship and participation
Migration and globalisation
Inequality, human security and ethnicity
Children and poverty
Women’s empowerment
Faiths in development
Disability
Power, politics and the state (planning/tendering stage)
Urbanisation (pending)
Aid effectiveness (pending)

Environmental change: around £5. 5 million in 2006/07 (rising to £9.3 million in 2007/08)

Bilateral	Collaborative/joint	Multilateral
Water and sanitation	Climate change adaptation in Africa
Energy for the poor (planning/tendering)	Eco-system services (pending)

Agriculture and natural resources: around £34 million in 2006/07

Bilateral	Collaborative/joint	Multilateral
Research into use programme	Responsive programme with Biological and Biosciences Research Council	Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research
African regional research programmes and one planned for S Asia		Core and project support to other international centres

Transport: around £4 million in 2006/07

Bilateral	Collaborative/joint	Multilateral
Transport Knowledge Programme	Community transport in SE Asia (WB)	Transport and Rural Infrastructure Services Learning and Sharing Partnership (WB trust fund)

Growth and economics: around £1.5 million in 2006/07

Bilateral	Collaborative/joint	Multilateral
Institutions for Pro-Poor Growth Research programme consortia		World Bank Trust Fund – Knowledge for Change
		Training grants through World Institute for Development Economics research

Health and HIV and AIDS: around £46 in 2006/07

Bilateral	Collaborative/joint	Multilateral
Health systems	Maternal mortality assessment	WHO Tropical Diseases and Human Reproduction research
Sexual and reproductive health and rights	Partnership with Medical Research Council, including major clinical trials (microbicide and HIV treatment)	Product development – AIDS vaccine and microbicides
Mother and infant care	Tobacco control	Product development – new drugs for malaria, TB, neglected diseases
Mental health		International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research Bangladesh
HIV treatment and care
Economics of HIV and AIDS
Communicable diseases and poverty
Effective Healthcare alliance
Applied health research
Clinical trial and capacity building (vit A)

Education: around £1.6m million in 2006/07

Bilateral	Collaborative/joint	Multilateral
Education quality
Education access
Education outcomes

Science and Technology: around £0.2m in 2006/07

Bilateral	Collaborative/joint	Multilateral
		NEPAD – assistance to Strategy for Science and Technology

Research communication and dissemination: around £6.7m in 2006/07

Bilateral	Collaborative/joint	Multilateral
Media capacity to use research	Information Communications Technology in development	Platforms providing free on-line access to research and high quality scientific journals
Range of web based, electronic and print information services for development decision makers	Support to science and technology journalists’ associations	Networks linking Southern researcher institutes and building their capacity for research dissemination
Science news digests		International information standards for research
Multi-media support to broadcast/disseminate outputs of DFID research		Information exchange about agricultural technology
Portal for DFID centrally funded research		Integrity in public sector information and records systems
		District-level public health information system for Africa

Footnotes

1.DFID’s approach is to generate and make available new knowledge as a pro poor public good, rather than as a consumable for its own operations, although DFID staff are, of course one audience for DFID funded research.

2. The UK Collaborative for Development Sciences (UK-CDS) brings together key funders of development science. The founder members of the Collaborative will be the Office of Science and Innovation, DFID, the Research Councils and the Wellcome Trust, who will be supported in an advisory capacity by the Gates Foundation. It will help improve co-ordination of UK medical, agricultural, environmental and other areas of research that will help combat disease and eradicate poverty in the developing world.

3. DFID’s policy groups commission shorter term research and analysis to inform policy. Research, analysis and statistical surveys related directly to achieving and monitoring DFID’S country programme objectives are also commissioned.