Redefining Knowledge and Development

After 10 years of analysising systems around the world, the UNESCO Forum on Higher Education, Research and Knowledge needs to redefine key concepts that underpin research and innovation and their contributions to development. Profiles and analyses of emerging knowledge systems in low- and middle-income nations have provided a vital building block – but it is limited in usefulness as the basis for new and more effective ways of linking knowledge with development for the benefit of developing nations.
Attention to lists of research gaps that emerged in the work of the Forum is likely to be valuable but does not necessarily constitute a basis for a different theory on knowledge and development, and a different practice that is better suited to the needs of low- and middle-income countries, writes Mala Sing in the final chapter of Forum's Research Report.It is time to rethink and re-theorise concepts such as what "counts as development within a Knowledge Society", and "what knowledge counts for development", she argues in a chapter titled "On the Way from the Forum: A future research agenda".
Full article on the University World News site
Source: University World News, Special Edition, Issue No: 0001 1 July 2009