Towards framing the global in global development: Prospects for development geography

Abstract

This paper examines data in the public sphere on the global scope of geography’s UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF) projects. Building on decolonial critiques of development research, I argue that geography should frame “the global” of global research as a sphere of ethical choices in research design and practice. The distribution of funded projects in the UKRI Gateway data suggests geographers succeed where they extend on the more worthy aspects of the discipline’s Area Studies legacy. The discipline’s engagements with early career researchers, international colleagues, and the development sector, however, have potentially been reshaped by the GCRF and thus need closer examination. While the UK government has brought the GCRF programme to a close, further work on these themes should inform the next iteration of global research. The ethical choices that make research global will remain fundamental to equitable design and impact in global development projects, thus scholars in development geography should prepare to make their projects more transparent and accountable.

Shifts to Global Development: Is this a reframing of power, agency, and progress?

“…The first three papers identify core agendas and spatialities of global development, namely rebranding, financialisation, and sustainability, to analyse the ways in which these shift (or further entrench) hegemonic forms of development discourse and practice (Banks & Overton, 2022;Hope, 2022;Horner, 2022). The final paper questions the mechanisms that constitute and enact "global development" by scrutinising the ethics, politics, and funding of research practices within UK-based geography (see McKay, 2022). Rory Horner's paper, "Beyond rebranding from international to global?…”

Research Translation for International Development: A Literature Review and Framework for Evidence Use and Partner Engagement

“…This trend is paired with increasing funding opportunities for academic research to improve development outcomes (Newman et al, 2012; Mach et al, 2020; Toukan, 2021) in many parts of the world. For example, in the United Kingdom, the Global Challenges Research fund allocated £1.5 billion to development research between 2016 and 2021 to support research that addressed the challenges faced by developing countries and identify ‘pathways to impact’ to ensure the developing countries benefit from the research (McKay, 2021). In the United States, the Higher Education Solutions Network (HESN 1.0) program allocated $140.5 million to leverage science, technology, and innovation to solve development challenges from 2012 to 2017 (Lebrón et al, 2014; Lebrón et al, 2014), recognizing that ‘higher education institutions play a critical role by spurring innovations to solve global development problems’ (Moore et al, 2021).…”