Science and engineering advance largely at centers of excellence - physical locations where research and advanced training are carried out, often in collaboration with other centers, institutions, and individuals. Centers of excellence are the key to innovation, and their importance cannot be overstated. Most of them are located in national laboratories or elite universities that tend to win most of the competitive research grants. For example, in the United States, with over 4,100 colleges and universities (more than 2,100 four-year universities), the top 100 universities account for US$22 billion of the overall US$27 billion in academic research expenditures. A similarly small group also accounts for the vast majority of patents.¹⁵

For the S&T capacities of developing nations to grow, therefore, they too should have centers of excellence - whether of local, national, regional, or international status. Such programs should have the following characteristics:

• Institutional autonomy and sustainable financial support (allowing freedom of intellectual pursuit without dogmatic or political pressure, as well as administration in a flexible and nonbureaucratic manner);
• Leadership by a person widely recognized by peers and who possesses effective management skills;
• Mechanisms for ensuring quality, including international assessments and dissemination of research results in internationally recognized publications;
• Merit-based hiring and promotion policies;
• Peer review of activities, both internal and external, as a systemic element;
• Collaboration with international institutions;
• A focused research agenda that includes interdisciplinary themes;
• Activities that cover not only research but also applications and technology transfer;
• Nurturing of new generations of S&T talent.

(See Boxes 32 and 33 for descriptions of first-rate research programs created in South Korea and Egypt.)

These centers of excellence do not necessarily have to be created de novo. The bolstering or reform of a country's most promising existing research and development programs can achieve the desired outcome. Better use can certainly be made of the public research and development institutions, often housing vast but underutilized armies of staff, that are now in place in many countries around the world. Many will be located at individual universities, and others will be of a regional character - perhaps even a network with several centers serving as the main nodes - to mobilize a large portion of the scientific community in the region. In any case, they should be based on groups characterized by scientific excellence and autonomy.

Some national agricultural research systems are repositories of enormous S&T capacity and expertise. Regrettably, many of them are prime examples of institutions in need of reform. Disadvantaged by inadequate political support, constrained budgets, and civil-service employment, they frequently cease to be more than the sum of their parts - and sometimes add up to less. Indeed, institutional entitlements for the individual laboratories or research centers of the system often become the norm, and seniority replaces performance as a means of assessing standing. The work on average becomes mediocre, even if some outstanding centers of excellence in certain parts of the system remain, as the abilities of capable scientists and technologists get stifled by the bureaucracy.

A key to promoting excellence is merit-based allocation of resources based on rigorous reviews. Given the relatively modest scientific capacity of most developing nations, such reviews - especially for decisions on new research projects - should ideally include appropriate experts from other nations who would essentially pose the following questions:

• What is the intellectual merit of the proposed activity?
• How important is the proposed activity to advancing knowledge and understanding within its own field or across different fields?
• How well qualified is the proposed individual or team to conduct the project?
• To what extent does the proposed activity suggest and explore creative and original concepts?
• Is there sufficient access to resources?
• To what extent will the activity enhance the infrastructure for research and education?
• Will the results be disseminated broadly to improve scientific and technological understanding?
• What might the benefits of the proposed activity be to society?

Similarly, all ongoing research programs at centers of excellence will benefit from a periodic expert review and evaluation. Techniques for such procedures include the following:

• Peer review teams are composed of scientific or technological peers who have the essential knowledge and perspective to judge the quality of research. Their reviews should make judgments about individual researchers, the value of their contributions, the management and standing of research institutions, and the allocation of funds to individuals and fields of research.
• Relevance review panels are composed of scientists or engineers from the field of research, experts in fields related to the one under review, and potential users of the results of the research. A relevance review will judge not only whether a proposed research program supports its mission but could also indicate promising directions for future research, both basic and applied.
• Benchmarking studies, conducted by panels of international experts, evaluate a nation's standing relative to other nations regarding particular parts of its science and engineering research efforts. Although the principal reliance is on the judgment of experts, quantitative measures can also be used for confirmation.

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