The areas of agriculture, engineering, and health, however, loom large in addressing the challenges of developing nations. The study of agriculture, engineering, and health is closely related not just to research but to practice. Therefore the nature of the training enterprise and the types of research institutes, such as teaching hospitals, agricultural research centers, or S&T parks located near or linked to university complexes, are somewhat different from the more standardized image of scientific labo-ratories and academic departments that this report may seem to imply. Yet these differences can be overdrawn. Our primary focus is on the development, mastery, and adaptation of knowledge - something shared among the sciences and engineering and medicine. The distinction lies simply in the type of knowledge that is particularly valued.
Although the social sciences differ from the physical, biological, and mathematical sciences in their focus on human behavior, the development of social-science capacity should be regarded as no less important. The role of well-trained and insightful economists, sociologists, anthropologists, political scientists, public-administrators, and other social-science profes-sionals is specially important in providing policy analyses, developing the S&T culture, building institutions, and maintaining the public-private interface for S&T promotion.
In the developing world especially, the need for problem-solvers working together in an interdisciplinary and systems-level fashion is critical. Technical experts who labor essentially alone are necessary there, but not sufficient.
