How we do research

Both rich and poor governments want to know what they are getting for their aid money, so that they can focus their efforts on what works and stop doing what doesn’t.

DFID is committed to using research and evidence to drive value for money and get the best results from development programmes; to provide better evidence for decision makers and practitioners; and to influence other donors to do the same. These are some of the ways that we are doing this:

We commission research on key questions in development and have three broad aims:

• to support the development of new technologies which would reduce poverty or the effects of poverty, such as new drugs, vaccines, or drought-tolerant crops
• to find better and more cost-effective ways of delivering aid and development assistance to those who need it
• to increase understanding of key development questions to support best policy choices

We focus on seven priority areas: agriculture; climate and environment; governance, conflict and social development; economic growth; health and education; evidence on impact and innovation; and ensuring that research is readily available to those who can use it.

We synthesise evidence. Currently much of the evidence that the development community needs is widely scattered, not systematically brought together, and of variable quality. As part of its commitment to making research more accessible, DFID synthesises evidence from all sources, assesses its quality and communicates the findings. Some of the ways we are doing this are through our systematic review programme and evidence papers. We also synthesise key findings from DFID funded research, such as the report on governance.    

We support openness and transparency. Research programmes commissioned directly by DFID are generally awarded through open competition, and go through a peer review process. This is usually a two stage process. In the first stage, short expressions of interest are received and reviewed by a group of internal reviewers, with a range of relevant expertise. Those shortlisted at this stage are then invited to submit full proposals. Full proposals are evaluated by a panel of reviewers that includes at least one independent external reviewer. Evaluation criteria are published at the time of calls for proposals. DFID is also committed to making our research findings freely available to all those who can use them around the world. Detailed information about DFID funded research programmes is already available on Research4Development, and we have in place an open access policy to increase visibility and remove price barriers to the full range of outputs from our research.

We are active in the international arena of funders of development research, aiming to share strategic thinking, lessons, peer reviewing and funding priorities, in order to identify opportunities to collaborate and avoid any duplication of effort.