William Clark John F. Kennedy School of Government Harvard University

1. Knowledge Systems for Sustainable Development:Reinventing Pasteur’s “Method” for the Challenges of a New Century? William Clark John F. Kennedy School of Government Harvard University

2. The Problem • Growing recognition that development "is built not merely through the accumulation of physical capital and human skill, but on a foundation of information, learning and adaptation…” but • Relevant knowledge is underproduced, underutilized, and unevenly distributed… • Even the knowledge that exists is seldom integrated into systems that can support decision and application on the ground. • World Bank, 1999. World Development Report: Knowledge for development. New York: Oxford University Press.

3. The Solution: Cloning Pasteur? Considerations of use? Research inspired by… Yes No No Quest for fundamental understanding? Yes (after D. Stokes)

4. From “The Method” to “Knowledge Systems” that support sustainability • Pasteur’s most important innovation? • not individual discoveries or cases, but “the method”… • Need to scale up “the method” so as to improve performance of whole “knowledge systems” that • set priorities, mobilize funds, recruit talent, do the R&D, review publications/promotions, facilitate practical application and reinvention, learn from experience • Examples of such “knowledge systems”… • International agricultural research system (CGIAR) • Others in public health, energy, manufacturing, environment, defense, education…

5. Learning from experience with knowledge systems? • Some of these knowledge systems seem to have been much more effective in learning to do better than have others (eg. agriculture vs. education) • What distinguishes more from less effective knowledge systems? What can be learned about improving performance from comparisons? • We don’t know… • Little systematic empirical research within problem areas (eg. health, education, environment) • Virtually no systematic comparison across problem areas (“Island empires”) • Huge cost in repeated blunders, lost opportunities

6. Promoting an International Dialogue • Regional workshops on what sustainable development wants – and gets – from S&T [ICSU/TWAS/ISTS; Mexico City] • Science Forum at World Summit on Sustainable Development (Johannesburg) • Increasing institutional focus on “knowledge” in international organizations such as World Bank, UNDP, WHO, others • Conference on comparing international research systems (agriculture, health, energy, environment) [Harvard University] • Roundtable on Science and Technology for Sustainability [National Academies, Washington] • Initial findings…

7. Need to foster user-producer interactions • In effective knowledge systems, the problem to be solved is defined in a collaborative but ultimately user-driven manner (Pasteur’s “use-inspired basic research”) • The collaborative dialogue of knowledge co-production must continue throughout the project, with both users’ goals and scientists’ R&D agendas changing in the process. •  Need to foster institutions and procedures for initiating and sustaining user-producer dialogues • Example: International Research Institute for Climate Prediction (IRI) linking users, producers of ENSO forecasts

8. The importance of end-to-end systems linking knowledge to action • Successful programs involve end-to-end, integrated systems that connect basic scientific predictions or observations through several steps to outputs directly relevant for decision making. •  Need “supply chain” perspectives on the design of decision support systems that assure no missing or mismatched links • Example: International Agricultural Research System lessons in need to foster national research capacity; unsolved in health research?

9. Need for “bridging” / “boundary-spanning” organizations • User-producer dialogues difficult to sustain along the supply chain from basic research to use / decision making • Dialogues within science-based organizations often do not mesh with dialogues within operations or policy contexts •  Need for boundary-spanning organizations and individuals to promote effective dialogues, with symmetric accountability to researchers, users •  Such organizations are both valuable… and vulnerable to loss of people & funding to pure research, pure application • Example: Pasteur Institute(s); International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (Austria); Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research (UK)...

10. The importance of creating “safe spaces” for innovative risk taking • Efforts to link knowledge to action in support of sustainable development often involve radical institutional innovations as well as technical ones •  Need “safe spaces” in which use-driven experimental innovations can be encouraged, innovators can be protected from those vested in defending status quo, and failure can be embraced as a source of learning… • Examples: Industry dictates to “never put a new product in an old division”; CDC Genotyping Network, exploring advanced analytic techniques for infectious disease management

11. Need for appropriate targets, metrics • Successfully targeting and sustaining programs linking knowledge to action for sustainability generally require a clear and readily understood statement of the beneficial outcomes that successful completion of the project would deliver (eg. Millennium Development Goals)… •  Need metrics linked to those goals that hold S&T-based programs accountable, while encouraging the sort of innovative, experimental, high-risk work that is central to mobilizing S&T for sustainability. • Examples: Few… most national, international research programs have not achieved this balance; interesting experiments underway at CGIAR/ASB

12. Challenges for the future: Designing knowledge systems that… • Empower end-users in setting priorities for R&D • Integrate “basic” and “applied” approaches to produce replicable systems of “user-inspired basic research” (replicating Pasteur’s “method” for today’s world) • Create “location-specific” knowledge needed for decision support, by incorporating tacit knowledge of practice plus and global knowledge/technology • Foster “boundary spanning” organizations to connect knowledge and action in pursuit of the above • Mobilize public / private partnerships to create stable financing, capacity-building of S&T for sustainability

13. For further information… • On the general challenge of harnessing science and technology for sustainability • http:/sustainabilityscience.org • On knowledge systems research… • http://sust.harvard.edu