U.S. Collaborators for ESP Engagement

Centers of excellence, defined broadly as research or training institutions, universities, laboratories, science museums, libraries, or other such institutions, are hubs for science and innovation in the United States, ESPs, and around the world.163 In Africa, the World Bank in collaboration with African governments and the African Association of Universities established the African Higher Education Centers of Excellence Project (also known as the ACE Impact Project) to develop several high-quality institutions for training postgraduate students in the sciences. These centers are seen as a way of promoting regional specialization and collaboration and include the West African Center for Cellular Biology of Infectious Pathogens (WACCBIP) at the University of Ghana, which has emerged as an important hub for research on malaria and, more recently, COVID-19.164

Centers such as these are clear contenders for U.S. scientists and institutions seeking to partner with ESPs in advanced scientific endeavors, as they are often home to top-tier talent, as well as top-quality scientific equipment that allows for in-country data collection and analysis.

Endnotes

• 163UNESCO, Basic Sciences, “Center of Excellence” (accessed August 12, 2021).
• 164Yaw Aniweh, Jonathan Suurbaar, Collins M. Morang’a, et al., “Analysis of Plasmodium falciparum RH2B Deletion Polymorphism across Different Transmission Areas,” Scientific Reports 10 (1498) (2020); and WACCBIP, “WACCBIP Scientists Sequence Genomes of Novel Coronavirus” (accessed August 12, 2021).

South Korea
 

After the Korean War, the United States collaborated with the Korean government on a shared goal of institution building, including the development of science universities. In 1970, Chung Kun-Mo, a Korean research professor at MIT and later at the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn, submitted (on the advice of the then administrator of USAID, John Hannah) a proposal to the Ministry of Science and Technology in Korea to establish a graduate school for S&T in an effort to prevent brain drain. The proposal was accepted, and Chung and the Korean government submitted funding requests to USAID with the support of Korea’s then president, Park Chung-Hee.173 In 1971, USAID contributed $6 million (the equivalent of $38 million today) to establish the Korea Advanced Institute of Science (KAIS), which later combined with the Korean Institute of Science and Technology (KIST) to form the national research university KAIST (formerly the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology) in 1981. The two would later split into two separate institutions, KIST and KAIST, in 1989 due to different research philosophies. KAIST’s development was advised by Stanford University’s then provost, Frederick Terman, whose “Terman Report,” codeveloped with significant input from Chung, served as a blueprint for the design and building of KAIST’s science and engineering research and education programming.174 Now, as a world leader in S&T, KAIST is working to continue capacity building, this time as a donor, including a $95 million loan to Kenya to establish an advanced S&T center known as Kenya-KAIST.175
 

Singapore
 

Universities have also played a role in directly supporting institution building. As one example, MIT has committed significant resources to institution-building efforts in several countries, including Singapore. Like South Korea, Singapore quickly emerged as a leading innovator in S&T due to its government’s strong support for R&D. When MIT’s first Singapore institution-building project began in 1999, Singapore was an ESP, its GDP an estimated $86.28 billion compared to $372.9 billion in 2019.176 The project, called the Singapore-MIT Alliance, was a collaboration between MIT and Singapore’s top two technical universities, the National University of Singapore and Nanyang Technological University. Before the project’s launch, MIT faculty visited Singapore in 1998 and spent four months developing recommendations for building a strong collaboration with university administrators and faculty in Singapore, including support for exchanges of students, faculty, and courses.

The success of such partnerships, and the extent to which they are fully realized by the ESP, can depend on the investment and commitment of that country’s government. Both South Korea and Singapore committed significant government resources to R&D; thus, the United States could trust that its investments in these institutions would lead to strong scientific partnerships long-term. Today, despite stated commitments, many ESPs have not made the necessary financial investments to develop domestic scientific enterprises.177 U.S. support for current ESPs could aid in securing partner government commitments to develop science capacity, leading to more promising future scientific collaborations and advancements.

Endnotes

• 173KAIST, “Founding Philosophy” (accessed August 12, 2021).
• 174Donald L. Benedict, Kun Mo Chung, Franklin A. Long, Thomas L. Martin, and Frederick E. Terman, Survey Report on the Establishment of the Korea Advanced Institute of Science (Korea Advanced Institute of Science, 1970) (accessed August 12, 2021); and KAIST Archives Service, “KAIST History” (accessed August 30, 2021).
• 175KAIST, “Founding Philosophy”; and Younghye Cho, “Kenya-KAIST Kicks Off with $95 Million Funding from the Korean Government,” EurekAlert!, press release, February 13, 2019 (accessed August 30, 2021).
• 176Richard K. Lester, A Global Strategy for MIT (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT, May 2017) (accessed August 30, 2021); and World Bank, “GDP (Current US$)—Singapore” (accessed August 12, 2021).
• 177Joanna Chataway, Charlie Dobson, Chux Daniels, et al., “Science Granting Councils in Sub-Saharan Africa: Trends and Tensions,” Science and Public Policy 46 (4) (2019): 620–631; and Daniel R. Ciocca and Gabriela Delgado, “The Reality of Scientific Research in Latin America: An Insider’s Perspective,” Cell Stress and Chaperones 22 (2017): 847–852.

U.S. foundations have a long history of funding capacity-building initiatives internationally across a variety of scientific disciplines. The benefits continue to be seen to this day. For example, the Rockefeller Foundation’s funding of applied agriculture research in the early twentieth century included the launch of the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) in the Philippines, whose work helped prevent widespread famine in Asia following the end of World War II.187 IRRI is only one of the agricultural research centers now distributed across the developing world that support research to promote food security internationally, including in the United States, through innovative agricultural research. The institute is managed under the collaboration CGIAR, which the United States continues to support with federal funding from USAID and with funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (see Mission-Driven Networks for further discussion of CGIAR).188

Foundations are also widely considered to have been instrumental in establishing modern public health practices. In 1909, John D. Rockefeller contributed $1 million to establish the Rockefeller Sanitary Commission for the Eradication of Hookworm in the American South, which then served as a model for building public health infrastructure in the United States and abroad. In 1913, the Rockefeller Foundation launched its International Health Division, which preceded the founding of the WHO as the most important global health body.189 It took the initial hookworm initiative global and then expanded to research other prevalent threats, including malaria and yellow fever, and build medical education capacity abroad—including through establishing permanent government public health structures and public health education programs.190 Today, Rockefeller still provides significant funding for global health issues, such as committing $20 million to disease surveillance programs, including the Mekong Basin Disease Surveillance Project in Southeast Asia and the East African Disease Surveillance Network.191

Since its founding, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has become a top funder of international global development efforts, offering significant support for initiatives in Africa. In 2004, the U.S. National Academies received funding from the foundation to launch ASADI, which sought to develop and strengthen the capabilities of African science academies to provide scientifically driven advice to government officials and policy-makers, especially to improve issues around public health.192

Today, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation provides funding for a vast array of programs across scientific disciplines and development goals. In 2003, the foundation launched the Grand Challenges in Global Health initiative, which started with a commitment of $481.6 million for projects focusing on fourteen major scientific challenges in global health, including vaccine development, development of treatments and preventative methods for vector-borne diseases, and engineering crops to more effectively provide nutrition to populations.193 The foundation is one of the main U.S. partners in Grand Challenges, “a family of initiatives fostering innovation to solve key global health and development problems.”194

Endnotes

• 187See American Academy of Arts and Sciences, America and the International Future of Science; and Robert E. Chandler, An Adventure in Applied Science: A History of the International Rice Research Institute (Manila: International Rice Research Institute, 1992) (accessed August 30, 2021).
• 188GenderInSITE, IAC, and ISC, Gender Equality in Science.
• 189Anne-Emanuelle Birn and Elizabeth Fee, “The Rockefeller Foundation and the International Health Agenda,” Lancet 381 (9878) (2013): 1618–1619; and The Rockefeller Foundation: A Digital History, “Health” (accessed August 12, 2021).
• 190“Rockefeller Foundation and International Health,” Nature 137 (1936): 774; Birn and Fee, “The Rockefeller Foundation and the International Health Agenda”; and The Rockefeller Foundation: A Digital History, “Health.”
• 191The Rockefeller Foundation: A Digital History, “Health: Transforming Health Systems” (accessed August 12, 2021).
• 192National Academies, “African Science Academy Development Initiative.”
• 193Global Grand Challenges, “Grand Challenges in Global Health Announced,” January 23, 2003 (accessed August 30, 2021); and Global Grand Challenges, “Challenges” (accessed August 12, 2021).
• 194Grand Challenges, “About Grand Challenges Initiatives” (accessed August 12, 2021).

CGIAR
 

For fifty years, CGIAR has supported research and innovation to end hunger and food insecurity, with current research initiatives focused on transforming food, land, and water systems amid the pressing climate crisis, primarily in the Global South.200 The network connects fifteen independent, nonprofit research organizations around the globe, each with individual research initiatives that are part of the CGIAR research portfolio.201 The network was initially founded as the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research in 1971. At its founding, U.S. membership included both U.S. government representation through USAID and several U.S. foundations, including the Ford and Rockefeller Foundations.202 The United States, both through the government and through philanthropies, has consistently been a top funder of CGIAR over the past decades.203

From 2017 to 2021, the CGIAR portfolio focused on two research challenges: innovation in agri-food systems and global integration, which frames the work of agri-food systems within broader systems such as health, climate change, policies, institutions, markets, as well as water, land, and ecosystems.204 CGIAR also conducts much of its research with significant attention to gender inequities and disparities.205

CGIAR’s impact is measured along three main axes: 1) science-based innovation and the development of technologies and knowledge products; 2) targeted capacity development, including at the individual and organizational levels; and 3) advice on policy, including strategy advice for businesses, institutions, and public policy sectors.206 Impacts are tracked on the CGIAR results dashboard, including assessments of contributions to relevant SDGs.207

In mid-2021, CGIAR published its 2030 Research and Innovation Strategy, which will support a systems-level research approach to food, land, and water.208 This work will build on CGIAR’s portfolio to meet the challenges of an increasingly dynamic world, working with partner research institutions and scientists to capitalize on the capabilities and talent of its expansive network to achieve the UN’s SDGs. CGIAR’s 2022–2024 Investment Prospectus describes its strategy for supporting this innovative research in the Global South by pooling its funding resources and allocating funds to research in key impact areas, including nutrition, health, and food security; environmental health and biodiversity; gender equality, youth, and social inclusion; poverty reduction, livelihoods, and jobs; and climate adaptation and mitigation.209
 

H3Africa
 

The H3Africa collaboration is a network that fosters genetic research and collaboration among African researchers on the continent to improve African and global health.210 As scientists in other parts of the globe revolutionized genomic research, African countries were largely left behind. The formation of H3Africa in 2011 sought to address this deficit by directing research funds toward inequities in health and economic well-being in Africa and internationally.211 In addition to supporting fundamental and basic science research on communicable and noncommunicable diseases, H3Africa also seeks to support capacity-building initiatives to develop scientific infrastructure, resources, training, and ethical guidance on health research.212

The H3Africa consortium is a network of research sites located across Africa with funding support from the NIH, Wellcome Trust, and the African Academy of Sciences. H3Africa’s endeavors include research projects, collaborative research centers, and biorepositories. Working groups provide guidance and oversight on administration, such as management of biorepositories and community engagement, as well as guiding research directions and priorities (e.g., on cardiovascular diseases, environmental health, HIV, and AIDS).213 H3Africa has made substantial progress toward developing “Principles on Ethics, Governance, and Resource Sharing,” part of an effort to combat “parachute science” and exploitive human subjects research.214

Research from H3Africa has led to important insights into the earliest humans and into understudied diseases, such as sickle cell disease, a genetic disease that impacts primarily those of African descent, including an estimated one hundred thousand Americans, with an incidence of one case for every 365 Black or African American births.215 As H3Africa expands its sickle cell research, as well as its research into other genetic diseases impacting people of African descent, the findings and potential therapies may play a significant role in alleviating this disease burden for all global citizens of African descent, including Black Americans.216

The United States supports H3Africa through several NIH institutes and centers, including the NIH Common Fund, the National Human Genome Research Institute, and the FIC.217 These grants are intended for African-based researchers and institutions to promote a strong genetic research community on the continent and with the African diaspora.218 This support provides opportunities for both peer-to-peer collaborations and institutional relationship building with African researchers and institutions.

Endnotes

• 200CGIAR, “CGIAR’s 50 Years of Innovations That Changed the World” (accessed August 30, 2021); and CGIAR, CGIAR 2030 Research and Innovation Strategy: Transforming Food, Land and Water Systems in a Climate Crisis (Montpellier, France: CGIAR, 2021) (accessed August 30, 2021).
• 201CGIAR, “Research Centers.”
• 202CGIAR, “Resolution: Objectives, Composition and Organizational Structure” (May 1971) (accessed November 11, 2021); and USAID, USAID’s Legacy in Agricultural Development: 50 Years of Progress (Washington, D.C.: USAID, 2013/2016) (accessed November 11, 2021).
• 203CGIAR, CGIAR at 40 and Beyond: Impacts That Matter for the Poor and the Planet (Washington, D.C.: CGIAR, June 2011), 40, Table 1 (accessed November 11, 2021).
• 204CGIAR, “Research” (accessed August 30, 2021).
• 205CGIAR, “CGIAR GENDER Platform” (accessed August 30, 2021).
• 206CGIAR, CGIAR 2030 Research and Innovation Strategy.
• 207CGIAR, “Results Dashboard” (accessed August 30, 2021).
• 208CGIAR, CGIAR 2030 Research and Innovation Strategy.
• 209CGIAR, CGIAR 2022–24 Investment Prospectus: Pooling Funds for Research and Innovation to Transform Food, Land and Water Systems (Montpellier, France: CGIAR, 2021) (accessed August 30, 2021).
• 210H3Africa (accessed August 30, 2021).
• 211H3Africa, “Our History” (accessed August 30, 2021).
• 212H3Africa, “Harnessing Genomic Technologies toward Improving Health in Africa: Opportunities and Challenges,” January 2011 (accessed August 30, 2021).
• 213H3Africa, “Working Groups” (accessed August 30, 2021).
• 214H3Africa, “High-Level Principles on Ethics, Governance and Resource Sharing” (accessed August 31, 2021); and Obiajulu Nnamuchi, “H3Africa: An Africa Exemplar? Exploring Its Framework on Protecting Human Research Participants,” Developing World Bioethics 18 (2) (2017): 156–164.
• 215Faheem Farooq, “Sickle Cell Disease and Cystic Fibrosis Research Funding and Research Productivity,” JAMA Network Open 3 (3) (2020): e201737; and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, “Data and Statistics on Sickle Cell Disease,” last reviewed December 16, 2020 (accessed August 31, 2021).
• 216Ambroise Wonkam, Julie Makani, Solomon Ofori-Aquah, et al., “Sickle Cell Disease and H3Africa: Enhancing Genomic Research on Cardiovascular Diseases in African Patients,” Cardiovascular Journal of Africa 26 (2 suppl. 1) (2015): S50–S55.
• 217FIC, “Human Heredity and Health in Africa (H3Africa) at NIH,” last updated November 2020 (accessed August 31, 2021).
• 218H3Africa, “NIH Funding” (accessed November 11, 2021); “Human Heredity and Health in Africa (H3Africa): Collaborative Centers (U54),” NIH Funding Opportunity Announcement RFA-RM-11-008, August 12, 2011 (accessed November 11, 2021); and H3Africa, “Harnessing Genomic Technologies toward Improving Health in Africa.”