Grant Funding Opportunities and the Rate and Direction of Scientific Research in Developing Countries

Our pilot study investigates whether access to funding influences the quality of ideas generated by agricultural scientists working in Anglophone West Africa. Our pilot will accomplish two concrete tasks. First, we will assemble administrative, CV, and publication data on regional scientists and funding programs. Third, we will run a virtual conference to randomize eligibility for a small awards program to test if a lack of funding institutions in the region causes scientists with potentially promising ideas to be less ambitious in their research. In the long term, our pilot will inform how to scale this work beyond West Africa, help us learn how we might test whether the presence of
funding institutions result not just in better ideas but also in better research outcomes in developing countries, and will help the meta-science research community develop stronger capabilities to study science and R&D in and for developing countries.