About R4D
About Research4Development
Research4Development (R4D) is the portal to DFID centrally funded research. It provides up-to-date information on DFID's current research portfolio. DFID's Research Strategy, published in 2008, sets out the priorities for DFID-funded research.
R4D also provides information about the research activities prior to 2008 in Rural Livelihoods, Health, Social Sciences, Education, and Infrastructure and Urban Development. It provides access to:
- Latest research news and activities
- Associated case studies
- Projects and Programme information across all the sectors
- Major findings - including access to policy briefs and media outputs
- Syntheses
- Current Research Topics funded by DFID
- Information on countries we work in and the institutions we work with
- Links to research websites
- Guidance on searching the internet more widely for information on DFID Research
- Guidance on communication of research
- Blogs on development research in general, and communication of research
- A monthly e-newsletter and themed e-alerts and RSS feeds.
In May 2007, DFID announced that CABI and CIMRC had been mandated to continue to develop and maintain R4D. Over the next three years, R4D will help position DFID's research programme within the global research-for-development knowledge pool. R4D will become a key internal knowledge management tool for DFID, as well as acting as a comprehensive repository for partners, and a leading knowledge resource for communication of research in development.
We welcome your comments about this website; please use the Feedback Form provided.
About DFID and DFID Research
The overall framework of DFID developmental policy is set out in the 1997 White Paper 'Eliminating World Poverty: A challenge for the 21st Century', and expanded upon by the 2000 White Paper 'Eliminating World Poverty: Making Globalisation Work for the Poor' and the 2006 White Paper 'Eliminating World Poverty: Making Governance Work for the Poor'. More information about DFID is available on the DFID website.
New science, technologies and ideas are crucial for the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals, but global research investments are insufficient to match needs and do not focus on the priorities of the poor. Many technological and policy innovations require an international scale of research effort.
DFID Research commissions research to help fill this gap, aiming to ensure tangible outcomes on the livelihoods of the poor. They also seek to influence the international and UK research agendas, putting poverty reduction and the needs of the poor at the forefront of global research efforts.
DFID Research manages long-term research initiatives that cut across individual countries or regions, and only funds activities if there are clear opportunities and mechanisms for the research to have a significant impact on poverty.
DFID's Research Strategy
DFID's 5-year Research Strategy for the period 2008-2013 was launched in April 2008. The Strategy pledged to increase spending to £1bn over five years across six thematic areas: Growth, Governance in Fragile States, Health, Agriculture, Climate Change and Forward-looking research.
The feature Research Strategy Launch describes how the Research Strategy was developed, with links to the consultation documents and to the Research Strategy itself, the 10 Working Papers, commentaries and video interviews on the Research Strategy, and other useful information. The feature 'DFID Research Strategy: One Year On' describes the achievements during the first year since the launch.
About DFID Research - Current Research Topics
The Research Topics are the broad categories within which DFID currently funds research. This section explains the relevance of these topics to development and outlines the DFID Research work in these areas, including descriptions of current and recently completed research.
Themed pages draw together details of current research and highlights the latest news, projects and documents added to the site in each category. The updates are also available as feeds.
About DFID Research - Thematic Summaries
The Thematic summaries are a series of specially commissioned documents on cross-cutting issues in DFID's research programmes. These summaries present the findings and recommendations from the programmes and are available as PDFs.
Research Dialogue Blog
The Research Dialogue blog provides a more informal look at DFID-funded research and development research in general. It aims to create discussion around research outputs, ask critical questions, and bring research to life. Comments on the stories are invited. Subscribe to a newsfeed or sign up for email alerts.
Development Research Organisations
This page provides links to other organisations which fund and disseminate development research, including charitable foundations, international and regional organisations, UK Research Councils, International Government Agencies and Communications Partners.
Communications Corner
The R4D Communications Corner provides guidance on communication of research. It offers advice on how to start (How to do it) and a range of resources (Helpful resources) and organisations (Who else is doing it) to assist with more effective communication. It also provides a platform to share progress and achievements, and to challenge others involved in similar work.
Every Friday the R4D Comms Corner Blog aims to inspire with examples of innovative communications. A companion blog, R4D Podium, appears every two weeks, and presents examples of ongoing communications work by DFID-funded researchers. Click here to subscribe to feeds or e-alerts from these blogs or to view all the posts.
About the Projects and Programmes Database
The searchable database contains news and case studies, around 5000 projects from the mid 1990s onwards and around 23,000 documents. It provides project information, including data on the organisations and countries involved. The database can be searched by free text, keywords or on internationally recognised subject categories.
Research News
The Research News page features news stories about DFID research activities. Search news content using the Site Search. News content is also available as a feed.For more DFID news, see the DFID web site.
Case Studies
The Case Studies section describes how DFID research activities are making a difference - stories told by people whose lives have been changed, and insights from researchers. Search the content of Case Studies using the the Site Search. Case study content is also available as a feed.
For more DFID Case Studies, see the DFID web site.
Search Research Database
Search Research Database - Site Search
A Site Search is a simple one box search option which searches all areas of R4D.
- To search for a specific phrase, use quotation marks (e.g. "millennium development goals").
- To restrict your search to PDFs, please enter filetype:pdf after your search term.
- For more tips on searching using Google, click here
- You can search all of the R4D website (default selection) or a subset of it by selecting another of the radio buttons and then clicking on the Search R4D button.
Alternatively, you can enter text in the same textbox and :
- click on DFID Website Search to search the DFID website
- click on Related Sites Search to search DFID Research related websites selected by our editors
- click on WWW Search to do a general Google search of the web
- click on Reset to remove any text from the textbox
The 3 searches - DFID Website Search, Related Sites Search and WWW Search - are not affected by the R4D radio button options.
Search Research Database - Projects
The Projects search is a 'Simple List' search. Choose from the list of topics which represent the main areas of centrally funded DFID research.
Click on a Research Topic, e.g. "Sustainable Agriculture" to view all projects where this is the main topic. You can also list projects by main themes, e.g. "Aquaculture and Fish Genetics". To refine your search further, use the Advanced option.
The default setting lists both current and completed projects, but does not list document records. You can alter these settings to search (i) either completed or current projects, (ii) both projects and documents records and (iii) only documents records.
The results can be sorted by R Number, Title, Lead Institute, Start Date, Finish Date, or Cost.
Search Research Database - Documents
The Documents search is a 'Simple List' search. Choose from the list of topics, which represent the main areas of centrally funded DFID research.
Click on a Research Topic, e.g. "Sustainable Agriculture" to view all related documents. You can also list documents by main themes, e.g. "Aquaculture and Fish Genetics". To refine your search further, use the Advanced option.
The default setting lists documents from both current and completed projects, but does not list project records. You can alter these settings to search (i) either completed or current projects, (ii) both projects and documents records and (iii) only documents records.
The results can be sorted by R Number, Title, Lead Institute, Start Date, Finish Date, Cost or Document Year.
The results of any search for documents can be further refined by filtering for particular types or categories of output, for example you may want to filter to show only 'technical reports' (a document type) or only show 'popular' (a document category) documents such as newsletters. These Document Types and Document Categories are displayed in a panel at the top of the Search Results page.
Search Research Database - Advanced Search
Advanced Search is the most flexible of the search options.
Note that this search does not search the PDFs in the document repository - use the site search to include these, or to extend your search via Google.
Enter one or more words or codes in the text boxes. You can choose to search all of the terms that you enter, any of these terms or the exact phrase.
By default the terms are submitted to all searchable fields, but you can restrict to specific fields. Note that if you select a project-related field you will not find documents, and vice-versa. Searches conducted using a project-related field can be filtered at the results stage to display just the current or completed projects.
To limit the results of your text search further, or to search specifically by country/region, DFID programme, organisation, project start and end dates, or document publication date, please use one or more of the boxes on the lower part of the screen. Click on 
to see more details of what is searched in each field.
Search Research Database - Country
You can search for projects and/or documents by Country or Region. The results can be sorted by R Number, Title, Lead Institute, Start Date, Finish Date, or Cost or Document Year.
Use the Advanced screen to search for countries/regions in combination with other key searchable fields.
Search Research Database - Research Contacts
On the Research Contacts screen, searching for organisations by name/acronym and/or country will allow you to view organisation contact information and details of their related projects.
In many cases, the contacts are given at the 'Department' or 'Centre' level. For a broader search e.g. to retrieve all entries for a particular University, such as the 'University of Oxford', use the Advanced Search option.
See also the map of DFID's active research partners and use it to link to information on their current projects.
For a general guide to using R4D see here.
RSS Feeds
Use the RSS Feed Searches page to create your own "themed" RSS Feeds from our Project database. The Feed Searches are intended to provide you with the flexibility to create feeds specific to your particular research interest.
Many RSS feeds are also available for R4D categorised by Research Theme, Country or News (and also various mixtures of all 3!). For example, News, and Case Studies. Please see our Subscribe to R4D page for further information and to view the full range of Feeds, Email Alerts and Newsletters available.
Submit Documents
The R4D Admin System allows users to submit new documents and revise the details of existing documents resulting from DFID-funded research.
If you are funded by DFID to conduct research and have a project record already on R4D, use this system to send us the outputs of your research. You will need to register to use the system.
About CIMRC
The Research4Development research portal is managed and hosted on behalf of DFID by CIMRC. CIMRC is a consortium led by CAB International to develop R4D and promote the communication and dissemination activities of DFID's Central Research Department. The CIMRC Consortium are:
- CAB International
- EUFORIC
- CommsConsult