Building social science research capacity in Bolivia: an institutional innovation

This paper analyses an innovative form of North–South cooperation – specifically between the Ministry of Development Cooperation of the Netherlands and Bolivia – to strengthen research capacity in the social sciences for development. The most notable innovation is that the donor approached the recipient country with an open agenda, allowing the Bolivian partners total autonomy to plan, implement, and manage their own programme, thus ensuring local ownership of the process in the South. The resulting programme – the Strategic Research Programme of Bolivia (PIEB) – was devised so as to promote research around an agenda built with wide participation of stakeholders. Research grants are allocated on a competitive basis, widely publicised, with clear guidelines and selection criteria. Research proposals are carried out by teams and have a strong component of training and involvement of research users. The achievements of the programme show the importance of the South retaining autonomy and ownership, provided the local leadership creates mechanisms for building trust and social accountability. They also demonstrate the importance of nurturing research excellence by creating quality control mechanisms. All elements taken together, PIEB may be seen as an example of institutional innovation in the Bolivian context. Notwithstanding the success and achievements presented above, building research capacity in the social sciences for development is an intensive, long‐term, and continuous process. In the long run, foreign assistance can only supplement investments made by countries on their own.