Global Knowledge and Development Project

Project Summary

Title: Global Knowledge and Development Project

Date: January - December 2002

Location: Victoria, Canada; Lima, Peru

Lead Organization: Globalization and Governance Division, Centre for Global Studies

Personnel Involved: Barry Carin, CFGS; Francisco Sagasti, Foro Nacional/Internacional, Peru

Funder: Rockefeller Foundation; David and Lucile Packard Foundation

Description: The purpose of the Global Knowledge and Development Project is to identify new strategies and mechanisms for enhancing the science and technology capacity of developing countries. The project emerged in relation to concerns over the growing knowledge divide between industrialized and developing countries, and seeks to improve understanding of the role of international science and technology cooperation in this context. To this end, the GKD Project has produced two resources. The first is the Inventory of International Science and Technology Cooperation Programs, a searchable, on-line listing of 270 programs engaged in the delivery of S&T-focussed assistance to developing countries. The Inventory provides a centralized database of information for researchers and practitioners in the S&T development community. It is also intended to provide baseline data on the existing landscape of S&T cooperation with the aim of identifying gaps, measuring and comparing different modes of intervention, and generally assisting the donor community to design more effective and coordinated S&T investments.

In a second component, the project has produced a comprehensive history and analysis of international S&T cooperation, including recommendations for the reform of S&T policy and institutions, in a report entitled "The Sisyphus Challenge: Knowledge, Innovation, and the Human Condition in the 21st Century." Together, these resources provide a wealth of new information and best practice ideas in support of new and improved approaches to international S&T cooperation.

Project Materials

Inventory of International Science and Technology Cooperation Programs

The GKD Concept Paper: The Sisyphus Challenge: Knowledge, Innovation, and the Human Condition in the 21st Century

Report From the International Advisory Meeting, October 2002

GKD Project Report

Publications:

Sagasti, F.R. Knowledge and Innovation for Development: The Sisyphus Challenge of the 21st Century E. Elgar, Cheltenham, UK, 2004.

Purchase book online: Edward Elgar Publishing