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Science and Innovation
Leveraging Science and Innovation for Development

Science, technology, and innovation (STI) can drive economic growth, help solve social and environmental problems, and reduce poverty.

All countries need to develop the capacity to produce and use science and technology themselves, and adapt knowledge to their needs and contexts.

Societies also need to understand both the benefits and risks of emerging technologies, such as digital ones, in order to maximize their benefits.

IDRC’s Science and Innovation program supports research and capacity building to help developing countries produce, adapt, and use STI for development.

Along with gender, key cross-cutting themes within the program are intellectual property rights, science granting councils, and inclusiveness.

 

African Institute for Mathematical Sciences

​IDRC is implementing Canada’s $20 million contribution to expand the network of Institutes for Mathematical Sciences in Africa, which provides rigorous mathematics training to post-graduate African students.

IDRC Challenge Fund

This initiative partners with Canada’s science granting councils to support joint research by Canadian and Southern scientists in areas of shared interest, such as climate change and infectious disease.

Information and Networks

This program explores the positive and negative impacts of widespread access to mobile telephones and the Internet in developing countries. I&N works to promote positive social and economic change, particularly in the areas of creative industries, governance, learning, and science.

Innovation for Inclusive Development

IID aims to better under understand how innovation in the informal sector can improve livelihoods and contribute to inclusive development, with a particular focus on women and groups that connect informal and formal sectors.
 
 

Latest Projects

The emerging and re-emerging zoonotic diseases affecting Brazil today result from complex interactions between natural and human systems. Zoonotic diseases such as hantavirus pulmonary syndrome, rabie

Latest Projects

Climate change poses a significant threat to agrarian societies in tropical regions. In Punjab, which produces more than half of India's annual food grain production, there is rising uncertainty in th

Latest Projects

Information and communication technologies (ICTs) can play an important role in helping communities prepare for and adapt to the effects of climate change. Various projects can attest to the potential

Latest Projects

The Fifth International Conference on Information and Communication Technologies and Development (ICTD2012) will take place 12-15 March 2012 at the Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech) in At

Latest Projects

This grant will support a program of fellowships and workshops on the link between security, organized crime, drugs and democracy in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC). The program is expected to h

Latest Results

Mexico and Uruguay have adopted a memorandum of agreement to protect youth's privacy and personal data on social networks. The document – the result of IDRC-supported research – has also become a key reference document for many Latin American...

Latest Results

In a landmark report, Media piracy in emerging economies, authors and researchers argue that media piracy in emerging economies results from a combination of high prices for media goods, low incomes, and cheap digital technologies. CDs, DVDs...
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IDRC funds researchers in the developing world so they can build healthier, more prosperous societies
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