Science, Technology and Innovation as Social Goods for Development: Rethinking Research Capacity Building from Sen\u2019s Capabilities Approach

Maru Mormina

doi:10.1007/s11948-018-0037-1

Abstract

Science and technology are key to economic and social development, yet the capacity for scientific innovation remains globally unequally distributed. Although a priority for development cooperation, building or developing research capacity is often reduced in practice to promoting knowledge transfers, for example through North–South partnerships. Research capacity building/development tends to focus on developing scientists’ technical competencies through training, without parallel investments to develop and sustain the socioeconomic and political structures that facilitate knowledge creation. This, the paper argues, significantly contributes to the scientific divide between developed and developing countries more than any skills shortage. Using Charles Taylor’s concept of irreducibly social goods, the paper extends Sen’s Capabilities Approach beyond its traditional focus on individual entitlements to present a view of scientific knowledge as a social good and the capability to produce it as a social capability. Expanding this capability requires going beyond current fragmented approaches to research capacity building to holistically strengthen the different social, political and economic structures that make up a nation’s innovation system. This has implications for the interpretation of human rights instruments beyond their current focus on access to knowledge and for focusing science policy and global research partnerships to design approaches to capacity building/development beyond individual training/skills building.

Highlights

The ability to generate scientific and technological knowledge (S&T) and translate it into new products or processes is a key instrument of economic growth and development
Whilst most international development organisations espouse the basic principle of capacity building as empowerment, in practice it is often operationalised as a means to solve practical problems
The contention here is that only by recognising the inextricable connection between science and the social structures from which it emerges can we develop ways to enhance society’s capacity for creating scientific knowledge

Summary

Introduction

The ability to generate scientific and technological knowledge (S&T) and translate it into new products or processes is a key instrument of economic growth and development. An effective approach to RCB must recognise that the creation of scientific knowledge is bound to the social, economic and political institutions, practices and norms that sustain it, to such extent that the right of individuals to access scientific knowledge and participate in its production (Timmermann 2014) cannot be asserted without recognising the intrinsic moral importance of the structures where knowledge is created.

Results

Conclusion