Creating new partnerships for research in developing countries

This paper proposes that transnational development research networks, such as NETREED (Network for Research and Evaluation on Education and Development), offer a solution to the problem of the under-representation of research in the policy process. The author focuses on education research in Pakistan, describing a dilemma: on the one hand, there is little capacity for domestically led research; but on the other hand, foreign researchers are perceived as either threatening or unqualified, and are thus ignored.

Networks such as NETREED are therefore valuable in several ways:

• Contribute to the development of a national research agenda.
  
• Review/collate research findings from around the world and disseminate them to other situations where they might also be relevant.
  
• Bring developing country research initiatives into the international mainstream.
  
• Involve policy-makers.
  
• Build research capacity in developing countries.