Science & Technology Collaboration: Building Capacity in Developing Countries?

From the Introduction: Scientifically Advanced Countries (SACs) "spend a portion of their budgets on international collaboration. This ranges from 5 percent for the U.S., which is the lowest among advanced industrial economies, to perhaps as much as 25 percent in the case of smaller, advanced economies. These funds are allocated in a "bottom-up" peer-reviewed process, with funds granted to scientifically excellent research, regardless of the partnering arrangements made by national scientists. As such, these types of collaborations differ from spending dedicated to foreign research-for-aid programs, which tend to be "top-down" in their mission focus and allocation. Total spending on research-for-aid has been estimated by others to be approximately $865 million a year for a subset of the major donor countries. Funds dedicated to collaborative research between SACs and SPCs (Scientifically Proficient Countries) or SDCs (Scientifically Developing Countries) appears to be about $1.4 billion per year. Very little is spent on collaboration with scientifically lagging countries; most projects mentioning an SLC (Scientifically Lagging Countries) is research about, rather than with, the country." By: Caroline S. Wagner, Irene T. Brahmakulam, Brian A. Jackson, Anny Wong, Tatsuro Yoda, The Rand Corporation, March 2001. Prepared for the World Bank. (PDF, 102 pages)