"Let's speak the truth to power... if somone will fund us"

Research and development are - at least to me - intrinsically linked.
To successfully develop, that is to grow, expand, progress, evolve, mature and prosper,we must experiment, investigate, analyze, examine and reflect, or in one word: research. Critical, self-reflective minds are the cornerstone of both: successful research and development. 

However, just like the Darth Vaders' of development, researchers are usually forced to operate within 'the system'. A system that has been dominated by the privatization of a long list of public goods, including education, and in particular research at university level and beyond. Government institutions and it's henchmen are still involved in the funding of the later, but mostly with specific research goals predefined and usually the private sector and its own benefits in mind.

A beautiful and scary example of government-funded, private sector focused research support for development projects in Africa is the announcement of a multi-million grant made available by the German Ministry for Education and Research (BMBF) for its 2019 "International Partnerships for Sustainable Innovation", in which the Ministry highlights that this project:
"should contribute to strengthening education, research and innovation in Germany and supporting the competitiveness of German companies by supporting cooperation with relevant partner countries"
(translated from:

Innovation, critical thinking, especially if it goes against widespread neoliberal ideology, and reflexivity are often stymied by short-sided and business-as-usual funding options available to researchers in the development field. As Robert Chamber points out in his 2017 book Can We Know Better?: Reflections for Development, research for us to know better requires funding, yet in the 21st century, more than ever, those with the purse strings hold the power. Hence it led some of the IDS staff to sum up the issues of development research in a toilet graffiti, which said:
"Let’s speak truth to power, provoking the repost,
Yes, if someone will fund us."
 Champer adds:
"What we research into, how we research, and so what we find out and come to believe we know, depends largely on what can be funded, which is largely determined by funding agencies." (p.168)
The sad state of affairs described by Chamber is indeed in-line with my experience researching 'Aid and Agriculture' in Ghana over the past four years. Unless you are toeing the line of big funding agencies (often in the pocket of big business) it seems difficult to impossible to receive monetary support for  independent, critical research. This issue and many others will be discussed on this blog in posts to come.







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