Saurav Raj Pant
The common tendency of the global south is that it has very less investment in research and development works as it is often occupied in dealing with food and shelter. According to the World Bank, Nepal’s research budget was 0.054% out of total GDP in 2008 which slightly increased to 0.302% by2010 which reflects the priority of the government of Nepal. Social Science in Nepal is a less ‘charmed’ subject. Majority of Nepalese seek employment abroad, while the rest choose corporate or private business along with government duties. Very few people choose to pursue their career in the field related to social sciences. According to the World Bank 2008 data, only 15.26% are employed in the service sectors. Nepal is an agricultural country with hyper rural settings. Mostly 80% of Nepali lands are rural and agriculture is the lifeline, however, the boom of the NGOs/INGOs in Nepal has created a few surpluses for the social science students The emerging cities of Nepal resembles the flourishing capitalism as the agriculture lands are converting into real estate ‘money producing’ engines. Some of the veteran sociologists in Nepal claim that Nepal is already under the capitalist mode of production but the traits of feudal, agriculture and capitalist are seen in Nepali society. Ironically, the Government of Nepal hires foreign experts in doing any macro research in Nepal with handsome payments while Nepali human resources remain unemployed often lacking skills to conduct such researches.
Can we think?
Though Research &Development (R&D) is not strictly associated with social sciences but there has been a huge crisis of R&D of Nepal even in general. This brings forth as a reminder of a famous saying of Kishore Mahbubani ‘Can Asians think’? Is Nepal thinking these days? It is hard to say. Nepal’s upbringing is purely traditional and lacks a rational approach often failing to see from a wider perspective. This gap has made Nepali inefficient and resembles the traditional and theological approach in every day to day life. The existing research institutions in Nepal like Nepal Academy of Science & Technology for Natural science, Institute for International Affairs, Nepal Agricultural Research Council and Center For Nepal and South Asian Studies are some of the handful names working for the research and development in their respective subjects. In this hyper globalized world, human development assets are preliminary to achieve any kinds of multi-lateral growth in the country. In the Western world, there has been a huge priority for social science development. Most of the American youth studies liberal arts to learn about the history, arts, culture, geography of the world and ultimately ruling the world. It’s the knowledge of the then Europe who saw the importance of history, arts, geography that helped them to push into the age of exploration which in return led to the apex of human civilization. According to Pew Research Center, most of the American youth graduates are more politically liberal due to changing political circumstances 7% of the post-graduates youth in 1994 are ‘consistently liberal’ whereas in current time 31% of people with post-grad education are consistently liberal. R&D contributes to more politically liberal attitudes of people. This somehow makes society more stable and chaos in the society is minimized. However, Nepal seems to be oblivious to the importance of R& D as no significant investment or efforts can be seen to have been made to develop research culture in Nepal.
Way forward
Strategy & formerly known as Booz & Company, the US-based consultancy firm say, Health care and computers accounted for half of all R&D investment. In 2013, Volkswagen invested 5.2% of its revenue in R&D. According to the National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics (NCSES), the majority of the R&D of the Multinational companies are done in the US located business. $279 billion was invested by the US located business in the R&D in 2010. Mostly R&D in the US and Europe are done by hiring scientist or being affiliated with the research council.
Underlining it in Nepal, due to the lack of robust research council in Nepal, Government of Nepal relies on the reports prepared by the UNDP (For Human Development Index), World Bank (For Economic growth) Amnesty International (For Human Rights issues), and Transparency International (For corruption issues). This makes Nepali government working modality totally de-technical and incapable of handling the socio-economic and political challenges that come across in the absence of social research.
In Europe, the need for social research has been felt from the very beginning. In universities of Europe, it started teaching various international subjects via establishing the research departments. Such departments include African Studies, Oriental Studies, Middle East Studies, South Asian studies. Due to the lack of proper vivid Master Degree (which is only oriented to the certificate), Nepali students are moving abroad to study regional discipline in Europe and the USA. So, it is somehow shameful for Nepal students to study about their regional dynamics in abroad because we lack research ingredients.
There is no independent policy environment for academic, students and activist to do independent research in Nepal. For doing in social research in Nepal, either one has to rely on the University Grant Commission (UGC) or within the funding framework of the INGOs or Development aid agencies as an NGO worker—–that is solely regulated by the Social Welfare Council. Unfortunately, international development partners have priority only in the community development works not on primarily the research & development work. Generally, International development agencies focus on the Baseline and End line research of specific project not on the issues. They believe themselves as humanitarian agents and deals with basic priorities of the vulnerable people. Most of the research institutions in Nepal are heavily politicized and outcome that would bring is still under big doubt for the community.
This brings the urgent need of independent and powerful social science research council in Nepal. The possible function of such research council would be analyzing the world-changing demographics, ethnic and religious dynamics. It is the lack of social research that in most cases sparks the war and ethnic cleansing. It also will provide policy direction for the regulation, promotion, implementation, and management. More significantly, it will help for knowledge generation and management. It will also publish and publicize the research content at the national and international level. Further, it will coordinate with various foreign research agencies to carry out a joint research project. The proposed council can be run by the veteran sociologist of Nepal where government ensures the provision of the budget for its work. This research council in long run encourages the habit of doing research among students and young scholars. It would even be better if we can propose such research council in a federal model since we are quickly moving to it. In such a proposed institution, young students can come to do an internship so as to sharpen their research skills.
The two rising giants’ neighbors of Nepal i.e India and China seems to have realized the importance of investing in R&D very early in comparison to ourselves. According to a WB report, the total expenditure of India out of GDP on R&D is 0.82 in 2011 which arose from 0.63 in 1996 whereas China’s total expenditure on R&D is 2.05% comparing to the 0.57 % in 1996. India and China both have powerful and Independent social research council to facilitate the R&D.
Under such crucial juncture, it is the responsibility and duties of every social science workers like us to demand a powerful and autonomous Social research council in Nepal, which would be responsible to look after institutions that are solely dedicated to social science researches rather than NGOs and private companies. Such council should be devoted in facilitating and managing academic and non –academic research in the field of social science. However, establishing the council and providing it the jurisdiction to regulate researches is not sufficient to enable our Nepalese researchers to compete with the world. A proper provision of funding and other technical support should also be provided, and the beneficiaries should not be limited to universities and NGOs but be extended to all existing and aspiring research organizations. Development of anything depends on the holistic understanding and knowledge of the subject, and a proper provision of social science research will provide an insight beyond the normal perception which can lead not only to economic, and political progress but usher in a desirable social change altogether.
The author is a Consultant for Kathmandu, Nepal based international research consulting firm known as Research Inputs & Development Action (RIDA)
