IKD: Innovation, Knowledge and Development
An Inter-Faculty Research Centre
Health, Innovation and Equity
Innovation in science and industry profoundly affects health systems and access to health care and medicines. Yet research on innovation is very poorly integrated with research on health equity. IKD: Innovation, Knowledge and Development works to bridge this gap, investigating the interconnections between innovation and health equity, and generating new knowledge for policy.
Projects
Industrial productivity and health sector performance
This project studies the supply chains into the health systems in Tanzania and Kenya of essential medicines and medical equipment and supplies from local industries and from imports. Shortages and unaffordability of these commodities are persistent causes of exclusionary and poor quality health care in low income Africa. Project details
Innovation for pro-poor growth
A burgeoning area of interest for IKD members is the issue of how innovative activity can promote and support entrepreneurship in order to raise the income, welfare and agency of the poorest in society. Project details on the Innovation for pro-poor growth website
Scientific capacity building in Africa
This project brings together a series of commissioned pieces of work with on-going academic study of what it means to build scientific capacity in Africa and the implications of this for innovation and health goals set by governments, funders and research institutes. Project details
Product Development Partnerships for Health
An Innogen funded project, this project is currently in its Third Phase having first started in 2001. This current phase of the project is concerned with questions of partnership objectives, inputs, process and outputs; and the connections between these. Project details
Assessing Democratic Governance of Genomics
Since the successful decoding of the human genome, achieving a balance between individual risks and public benefits raises the question of democratic governance of new life science technologies. Project details on the Innogen website
Life Sciences, Innovation and Social Justice
This project examines the new challenges that bio-scientific knowledge poses to 'fair' distribution of opportunities and risks, benefits and costs in a global civil society. Project details
Innovation, Global Justice and Politics of Development
The importance of innovation in human development is undeniable. Since the 1780s, successive scientific and technological revolutions have introduced new products and services with tremendous impact on human well-being and general welfare. Yet innovation has not been available to all individuals and their societies. Project details on the DPP website
Ethics, payments and maternal survival in Tanzania
The maternal mortality rate in Tanzania is among the highest in the world. This research focuses on the interaction between payment practices in maternal care and the quality and ethics of the care provided. Project details
Innovation & Equity (Innov-Eq)
The project brings together innovation economists, economic historians and industrial economists to think creatively about the way that innovation and inequality co-evolve - and how this relationship has changed over the course of capitalism. Project details on the Innov-Eq website
Medical devices industries in developing countries
Medical device and Pharmaceutical industry forms important industries for containment of healthcare cost and access of healthcare to poor people. Project details
Innovation in Pharma and Equity in Health Systems
The case of health care represents a crucial issue and 'example' in the analysis of the interrelations between innovation and inequality. The project seeks to tackle the issue by bringing together an understanding of the construction of capabilities in innovation and manufacturing, and the construction of health system capability to deliver access and lower inequity. Project details
Past projects
TheSyS: Technology for health systems strengthening
TheSys was a platform for bringing together research on technologies and health systems, in a series of workshops and events that took place predominately between 2009 and 2011. Project details on the TheSyS website
Non-governmental Action to Improve the Access of the Poor to Good Quality Low Cost Drugs
This research analyses the scope for non-governmental action to improve access by low income people to quality-assured low cost medicines. It concentrates on problems of access by the poor in India and in Tanzania to reliable drugs from Indian pharmaceutical companies. Project details