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Parallel to this month’s UN General Assembly in New York, another critical summit will take place: the Science Summit at UNGA80. The summit — which aims to highlight “the pivotal role of science in addressing societal challenges” — will provide a platform for low- and middle-income countries to demand a renewed recognition of scientific research as a pillar of resilience and sovereignty.
For decades, the conventional wisdom has been that the fastest route to development lies in the adoption of foreign technologies, not independent innovation. Development institutions and policymakers have treated basic science as a luxury that only advanced economies could afford. For low- and middle-income countries, they argued, the cultivation of scientific capacity — a slow and expensive process — would consume resources that should be allocated to pressing needs like poverty reduction, food security and infrastructure; they are thus better off importing technologies and solutions from abroad.
But this logic has been upended in recent years. A series of developments — including the COVID-19 pandemic, intensifying climate shocks and proliferating barriers to trade and technology transfers — has exposed the risks of dependence on imported science. It is now clear that if low- and middle-income countries are to gain control over their own development agendas, respond effectively to crises and adapt global knowledge to local realities, they must build their own dynamic research ecosystems.
This is not a detour on the path to development or an inconvenient necessity born of external challenges. Far from distracting from urgent needs, investment in basic science can enable countries to meet those needs by giving rise to new industries, creating high-quality jobs, strengthening public services and attracting the private capital needed to sustain growth and innovation.
Calls for low- and middle-income countries to raise gross expenditure on research and development toward the widely used 1 percent-of-gross domestic product benchmark have rightly been growing louder. But not all investments are created equal. In a study at the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, my team and I mapped a new dataset, spanning 129 countries, according to funding, talent, institutions and research output. Our central finding is that total spending matters much less than the manner and context in which it is deployed. 

The conventional wisdom has long been that the fastest route to development lies in the adoption of foreign technologies.

Bridget Boakye

When paired with strong institutions, capable research agencies and policies that attract and circulate talent, even modest R&D budgets can yield outsize returns. Our analysis showed that some countries achieve several times the global median research impact (H-index) per dollar of R&D spending, while others fall short. The lesson for low- and middle-income countries is especially important: countries under budget pressures cannot afford to spend more on poorly aligned systems.
Low- and middle-income countries have proven their capacity for innovation, especially in the health sector. During the pandemic, Senegal’s Pasteur Institute developed and deployed rapid diagnostic kits within weeks and Ugandan scientists created mobile EpiTent hospitals tailored to the local public health system. Using its genome-sequencing capabilities, South Africa identified new virus variants early, providing critical data to the world. These achievements were the product of deliberate, long-term investments in domestic capacity that paid off when global supply chains and aid channels faltered.
International partners have a critical role to play in supporting scientific sovereignty in developing economies, including by co-investing in universities, laboratories and research councils based in low- and middle-income countries. As these nations’ scientific capacities progress, so will their ability to collaborate as equals with international researchers and institutions; contribute solutions to shared problems, from pandemic preparedness to food security; and ensure that global research agendas reflect the needs and priorities of all countries, not just the wealthiest.
At a time of shrinking global aid budgets and faltering multilateralism, low- and middle-income countries cannot count on the international community to meet their development needs. But far from a roadblock to progress, this should serve as a catalyst for transformation. By investing in their own institutions and talent, developing-country governments can transform vulnerability into resilience and dependence into agency.
At the UNGA, world leaders will discuss wars, climate change and economic uncertainty. But science must also be on the agenda. Only by nurturing robust scientific ecosystems can we ensure that low- and middle-income countries are prepared to meet known and unknown challenges.

• Bridget Boakye is Senior Policy Adviser for Science and Technology at the Tony Blair Institute.
©Project Syndicate