Strategies for Achieving High Performance in R&D for Neglected Diseases: A Configurational Approach

Abstract

Public laboratories pursue scientific and technological advances where private actors lack knowledge, funds, and incentives to invest. Focusing on “neglected diseases”—those which primarily affect people in poor countries—we study how funding sources and research team characteristics affect the R&D performance within a major public lab. We employ a configurational approach to analyze 195 research projects conducted in a public lab in Brazil, a country in which neglected diseases make up the majority of the disease burden. Our findings reveal three configurations to high performance and a set of pivotal choices in project funding capable of leveraging the performance of research projects. From these findings we devise strategies for achieving high performance in research on neglected diseases. We offer a midrange theory of R&D performance in the context of public labs which has implications for the design and maintenance of national innovation systems. Our results also inform literatures on the organization of science and funding for public health, and provide actionable insights for managers and policy makers.