“The Science Community’s “S**thole countries” Problem”
“Similarly, when we criticize developing-country governments for not leading local investment in research and science we ignore the many years in which these same governments were advised to invest in primary education, basic infrastructure, anything but higher education and research. We allow international funders to justify taking a back seat and continue funding science disproportionately in wealthy countries…
I frequently hear it argued that such scientists should therefore build their base by focusing on training students and practicing introductory level research, leaving the cutting-edge work to scientists in more advanced economies. In the most recent instance, I was told by an American scientist that a colleague in southern Africa should work on “setting up basic molecular biology techniques” and leave such things as CRISPR development to scientists like her. This argument is fundamentally patronizing and relegates scientists in certain countries to being hobbyists and not “real scientists”…
Reversing this broad-based level of implicit bias is not going to be simple. It has to be rooted out on many fronts. At the most significant level, the investment in leveling the playing field for scientific infrastructure must be everyone’s responsibility — governments of all countries as well as independent foundations and multilaterals. We must take into account the longstanding under-investment in certain regions and provide adequate funding to leapfrog researchers to a competitive level of infrastructure as well as fund them to carry out genuinely cutting-edge research.”
