Why science shouldn’t be a rich country privilege

From the COVID-19 pandemic to worsening climate shocks and shrinking aid budgets, a series of crises has exposed the risks of relying on wealthy nations to deliver scientific and technological solutions. If developing economies want to respond effectively to crises and steer their own development, more experts have become convinced that they must cultivate their own research ecosystems.

Alongside this month’s United Nations General Assembly in New York that is capturing the world’s attention particularly because of the issue of Palestinian statehood expected to be addressed there, the Project Syndicate publication highlights another critical gathering: the Science Summit at UNGA80.

The event – which aims to showcase “the pivotal role of science in addressing societal challenges” – will serve as a platform for low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) to call for renewed recognition of scientific research as a foundation for resilience and sovereignty.

The published article points out that the conventional wisdom held for decades has been that the fastest route to development was adopting foreign technologies rather than pursuing independent innovation. Policymakers and development institutions often dismissed basic science as a luxury that only advanced economies could afford.

For LMICs, they argued, building out their own scientific capacity – a slow and resource-intensive process – would drain funds needed for urgent priorities such as poverty reduction, food security, and infrastructure. Imported solutions, they maintained, would be more efficient.

That logic, however, has been undermined. The author argues that recent crises – including the COVID-19 pandemic, intensifying climate impacts, and growing barriers to trade and technology transfers – have revealed the dangers of dependence on imported science.

Today it is evident that if LMICs want to control their own development agendas, respond to emergencies, and adapt global knowledge to local needs, they must invest in building vibrant research ecosystems.

According to the article, this should not be seen as a diversion from the path to development or a burden imposed by outside challenges. On the contrary, investment in basic science can directly address urgent needs by spawning new industries, creating skilled jobs, enhancing public services, and attracting the private capital needed to sustain long-term growth and innovation.

Calls for LMICs to increase gross expenditure on research and development toward the widely used 1%-of-GDP benchmark have grown louder. But the article stresses that “not all investments are created equal.”

In a study conducted at the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, the author and her team built a dataset covering 129 countries, mapping funding, talent, institutions, and research output. Their main conclusion: total spending matters far less than how and where it is allocated.

The analysis found that when paired with strong institutions, effective research agencies, and policies that attract and circulate talent, even modest R&D budgets can deliver outsized results. Some countries generate several times the global median research impact (H-index) per dollar of R&D spending, while others fall well below.

For LMICs under fiscal strain, the lesson is crucial: they cannot afford to pour more resources into poorly designed systems.

The COVID-19 pandemic illustrates this point. LMICs demonstrated impressive innovation, particularly in healthcare. Senegal’s Pasteur Institute developed rapid diagnostic kits within weeks; Ugandan scientists created mobile EpiTent hospitals tailored to local needs; and South African genome sequencing identified new virus variants early, supplying critical information to the world. Each of these achievements stemmed from deliberate, long-term investment in domestic research capacity that paid off when global supply chains and aid mechanisms broke down.

The article emphasizes that international partners still have a vital role in fostering scientific sovereignty in developing countries, particularly through co-investment in local universities, laboratories, and research councils.

As LMICs expand their scientific capabilities, they will be better positioned to collaborate as equals with global institutions, contribute solutions to shared challenges such as pandemics and food security, and shape global research agendas to reflect the priorities of all nations, not just the wealthiest.

Amid shrinking aid budgets and weakening multilateralism, the author cautions that LMICs cannot rely on the international community to fulfill their development needs. But rather than being an obstacle, this should be seen as a catalyst for transformation.

By Nazrin Sadigova