‘White elephants’ (expensive projects that are not really useful) still abound. Almost without exception, such white elephant development projects are the unfortunate result of specialists and consultants who turned a blind eye not only to specific local circumstances, but also to potentially useful knowledge from other disciplines.
In 2000, the Board of Wageningen University established the Interdisciplinary Research and Education Fund (INREF), a university wide framework for development oriented research and education. INREF is an innovative attempt to join forces across the borders of scientific disciplines (natural and social sciences) in order to find answers to development related problems. In a recently published booklet researchers from Wageningen and their local counterparts report on their experiences in this interdisciplinary interactive research.
Now, almost ten years after INREF was set up, twelve research programmes have been approved. Half of them have been completed, the other half are well underway. Each of these programmes is a joint effort of researchers of Wageningen University and the partner institutes; 6 to 12 PhD students from developing countries and emerging economies conduct the actual research in each programme. The PhD students take courses and write their research proposals in Wageningen, then conduct the research in their home countries, and finally return to Wageningen to write and defend their thesis. This is called the sandwich model. After graduation, they return to their institute and their formal position. In most cases the new doctors soon get promoted and establish themselves in influential positions in their institute.
The objective of INREF is to produce research results that ‘make a difference’. A good example is the ongoing ‘Competing Claims’ programme. The programme focuses on the situation in and around the trans-frontier nature reserve covering parts of South Africa, Mozambique and Zimbabwe. In this area, the claims of local communities compete with the ideals of nature conservationists, national economic interests and even the ‘claims’ of lions and elephants on their habitat. The ‘Competing Claims’ programme investigates the situation in Southern Africa, but the programme’s approach is so innovative that it has attracted the attention of Dutch policy makers, who believe it to be useful for their own challenges regarding multiple land use on the banks of Dutch rivers.
The success is also illustrated by the fact that most INREF programmes manage to attract external funding from interested institutes and organizations. Many programmes are, after completion, followed-up by new research programmes or by initiatives to apply the newly found knowledge. INREF contributes to boosting the institutional capacity of partner universities and research centers in the South. The six completed INREF programmes have resulted in 53 PhD theses, and hundreds of scientific publications and papers in proceedings of (international) conferences, and many more are expected. After graduating the INREF students form a unique network of policy makers and researchers that extends beyond national borders - and which is made up of people dedicated to cross disciplinary boundaries too in their study of real life problems. For Wageningen University, it is highly rewarding to be at the heart of this network.
On the occasion of the tenth anniversary of INREF a booklet “Journey into Interdisciplinary – Ten years of INREF experience” reporting on the experiences and the results has been published.