when they are focused on quite explicit problems, with 

 minimal political and bureaucratic interference and 

 strong demand for the product. 



Ideally, collaboration on research and development, 

 technology testing, policy analysis, or other problem- 

 solving work can produce a net result greater than the 

 sum of its individual parts. Participants can share 

 specialized research equipment, skills, and findings. 

 Experimental sites located in different environments 

 speed results, and, when common research protocols and 

 evaluation processes are used, offer possibilities for 

 comparative evaluations. Costs can be cut by means of 

 divisions of labor, pooling data, and sharing such 

 services as the collection of information, specialized 

 training, and storage of research materials, including 

 software designs. Participants from developing 

 countries can gain training, advice, and access to 

 worldwide scientific and technical capabilities beyond 

 anything they could mobilize on their own, even with 

 large-scale assistance. 



These advantages must be balanced, however, against 

 the possible disadvantages of maintaining a central 

 organization for the collaborative system. Costs 

 include increased overhead expenditures, use of scarce 

 professional time to oversee coordinated activities, 

 and some loss of individual flexibility by the 

 collaborators. Where the central organization conducts 

 part of the problem-solving work, there may well be 

 added costs and difficulties in interacting effectively 

 over great distances with those who would use the 

 results. 



Scientists have long pursued opportunities for ad 

 hoc collaboration or exchanges of information with 

 foreign colleagues on problems of common interest. 

 International work on development problems over the 

 past decade or so, particularly in agriculture but also 

 in other fields, has brought out the practical values 

 mentioned earlier of more systematic, continuing 

 collaboration in a format of voluntary participation 

 and mutual determination of common activities among all 

 participants. There are many possible variations in 

 organization, ranging from programming committees to 

 quite elaborate administrative structures. Each has 

 advantages and disadvantages in specific circumstances. 

 Regional intergovernmental institutions, for example, 

 enable developing countries to pool their efforts on a 

 scale large enough to work effectively on tough 

 problems, but many such institutions have been unable 

 to sustain adequate financing, linkages with national 

 operating organizations, and freedom from 

 intergovernmental politics. The private autonomous 

 international research institutes, which are nerve 

 centers for worldwide networks that collaborate on 



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