Research News

For the first time Development Studies research in the UK has been assessed as a separate discipline. The result of this exercise has illustrated some impressive findings regarding both the quality of the research being done by UK institutions and DFID's funding of this. The Research Assessment Exercise is an exercise that examines the quality of research in British institutions. The findings for the 2008 Exercise are now available.

Some of the findings relating to DFID from the report of the Development Studies Panel are:

• Development Studies is now characterised by some outstandingly successful and substantial research centres, programmes and consortia funded by the UK's Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and the UK government's Department for International Development (DFID).
• The policy impact of Development Studies research is mediated in significant ways through DFID which has supplied the majority of research funds to the submissions in RAE2008.
• DFID's initiative is an important influence on the agenda of research in the UK, and on the manner in which it is carried out (increasingly through research subcontracting and consortia).
• Given the key importance and time-consuming nature of the capacity building, research management across multiple sites and dissemination activity required for much of this funded research, it is remarkable that research quality is so good.
• Recognition that DFID funded Research Programme Consortia were able to integrate theoretical work into their policy-oriented programmes.
• It was noted that DFID’s future research strategy matches existing mature or emerging fields as evinced by the submissions: growth, climate change, governance in challenging environments (including conflict, social exclusion and poverty, hard to reach MDGs and migration), new technologies, and development success 'beyond aid'.
• DFID's strategy supports other research areas strongly linked to development sciences such as sustainable agriculture and health.
• The sector is now more diverse than indicated by DFID's strategic research needs and it will thus continue to stimulate DFID and in turn to need support for new fields of research.
• The panel were impressed by the evidence for a rise in funding from research councils including through ESRC centres, the ESRC-DFID programme, other joint initiatives between research councils and government departments as well as substantial support from the UK government.

More Information

• RAE 2008 Review of Development Studies Research
• DFID Research Strategy 2008-2013
• List of projects funded through the ESRC-DFID Programme. Note that details of individual costs of the projects are not listed here, but may be found in the individual R4D project records. Total costs of the programme to DFID are given here