Institute of Development Studies
Annual Report 2011
Knowledge Technology and Society
We undertake research that focuses on science, technology and society, asking how diverse knowledge and expert science can advance poor peoples concerns and improve environmental sustainability in locally and culturally specific ways. Our approach emphasises the importance of collaborative understandings which go beyond scientific objectivity to include awareness of how dynamic sociopolitical, environmental and technological factors interact.
Clustering our work around agriculture, health, and water and sanitation, we have created new alliances with natural scientists, published excellent individual and coconstructed research, and developed innovative influencing strategies. Ultimately, the KNOTS Team seeks to produce policy-relevant work which – through bringing different perspectives, associated solutions and trade-offs to the fore – supports social and environmental justice.
Research Centres
Highlight
Building New Relationships:
IDS Fellow tackles water scarcity with some unusual research partners
KNOTS Research Fellow, Lyla Mehta, has been awarded the chance to undertake funded research in partnership with microbiologists, chemists, biotechnologists, engineers and product designers, exploring new waste treatment technologies for peri-urban environments in the developing world. 'A Global Solution to Protect Water by Transforming Waste', a project led by the University of Glasgow, was selected by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Councils sandpit (or ideas factory) after 22 participants from various disciplines explored solutions to water scarcity and collectively developed research proposals which were then peer-reviewed.
The research aims to develop scientifically sound, low-cost, locally appropriate and innovative technology based on anaerobic digestion, while adopting a participatory sociotechnical approach. This truly interdisciplinary project, with new and unusual research partners, has potential to bring about significant changes in bio-engineering while introducing novel and socially appropriate technologies – developed in the South – to improve waste treatment efficiency in the North.
Viewpoint
Dr Kamal Kar:
Founder and chairman of the CLTS Foundation
I have had a long association with both IDS and the KNOTS Team. Working recently on the DFID funded Community-led Total Sanitation project led by Lyla Mehta has been a great pleasure, bringing me closer to the KNOTS Team and developing strong functional linkages between us. The recently published book Shit Matters will address so many important questions which have been raised; everywhere Ive worked, I've been answering people with 'wait until this book comes out'. It will make such a difference to people around the world. It is vital that this book is widely disseminated, and translated quickly to ensure maximum impact. I have just come out of an intensive two days at the Liquid Dynamics II STEPS Water Symposium held at IDS, which was creatively planned, bringing together a fantastic platform of practitioners, academics and policymakers. It has been a huge success. You could clearly see that people will go away with new ideas – things will definitely happen from here.
Highlight
Building New Relationships:
New Manifesto launched on innovation, sustainability, development
Last year the ESRC funded STEPS Centre researchers, together with partners around the world, launched an ambitious multimedia project inspired by the 'Sussex Manifesto' published 40 years ago. It involved roundtables, workshops, networking, video and interactive online activities (www.anewmanifesto.org). Our 'New Manifesto' proposed an agenda for innovation, focusing on direction, distribution and diversity. It recommended five areas for catalysing and provoking specific concrete actions in different places. These are agenda-setting, funding, capacity building, organisational arrangements and monitoring, evaluation and accountability.
This international project was inspired by our belief that in order to meet the challenges of sustainability and social justice, a radical shift is needed in how we think about and perform innovation - amounting to a new politics. The New Manifesto provided the STEPS Centre with opportunities to engage with new alliances around the world, to document and learn from innovation initiatives, and to take key messages to national governments, international organisations and civil society groups in an effort to effect long-term change at multiple levels.
Highlight
Linking Different Perspectives:
A new report brings together local realities and global perspectives on 'Aid for AIDS'
IDS has been working with the Research for Equity and Community Health (REACH) Trust in Malawi, the Institute of Economic and Social Research of the University of Zambia and the African Population and Health Center in Kenya on a three-country research project, entitled 'Aid for AIDS'. Hayley MacGregor and Jerker Edstrom from IDS' KNOTS Team have just published two syntheses of the research findings across the three countries, providing lessons for future donor policy. The findings suggest that we must acknowledge the complementary benefits of plural channels of resourcing beyond the public sector, as well as the need for investment in building civil society sector capacity. Donors should focus their support to governments on improving governance rather than resourcing public budgets and, above all, start at home by improving donor initiatives, interactions and coherence to become more complementary and less complicated down to community levels.
Download the Knowledge, Technology and Society section of our Annual Report.