Thanks for the engagement in 2018 and best wishes for 2019

​The r4d programme management expresses its gratefulness for the engagement of the researchers, Review Panel members and collaborators in the r4d programme network for another rich and fruitful year.

With 11 new projects in the third thematically open research module the r4d programme reached full size with 57 projects, involving researcher groups of 294 grantees active in 50 countries worldwide.

While new projects started, others came to an end. The full overview of the funded projects is accessible in our updated Factsheets 2019 (PDF); the outputs of the r4d projects can be seen in the SNSF research data base and on the individual project websites.

Project and programme outcomes in terms of transformative impacts of research results and processes are followed up in our r4d programme synthesis, which was launched in 2018. A participatory filmmaking project on "Digital Storytellers, a tangible experience on contributions to achieving Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)" will start in the beginning of 2019. A study on the " Utilisation of research knowledge in transformative pathways" will be implemented until 2020. Two other r4d programme synthesis projects on " Capitalisation of the strategies for dealing with research for development in complex systems" and on " Evolution of partnerships as transformative instrument" will be launched in 2019.

Synthesis in the r4d programme is understood as the contextualisation and integration of research findings and procedural learnings beyond individual r4d projects into a larger body of knowledge in the interfaces between science, policy and society. For that, the r4d programme provides room for innovative collaborative processes spanning over projects and continents.

A glimpse of what it means to implement a global research programme provides the Mid-term Review Report and the management response of the r4d Steering Committee (PDF), published in 2018. Based on these insights, the r4d programme actively feeds its experiences also into international science policy fora, such as the OECD Workshop in Moscow, Russia, on international research and innovation partnerships, in June 2018, and the International Research for Development Funders Forum, co-hosted by the SNSF and UK Research and Innovation in Bern, Switzerland, in November 2018.

The close collaboration between the two funders of the r4d programme, the Swiss Agency for Development and the Swiss National Science Foundation, makes this research programme a unique opportunity for combining scientific excellence with development relevance and bringing to fruition the results not only for the scientific community but for development cooperation.

All this would not be possible without the engagement and openness of the researchers in the r4d programme, the guidance by the six Review Panels and the r4d Steering Committee.

We are grateful for the engagement in all the endeavours and look forward to 2019.

We wish all our partners and collaborators a Happy New Year!