Nutrition research priorities for the Third World.

For many people, the juxtaposition of the words ‘research’ and ‘priorities’ produces the reaction that these are to some extent imcompatible notions unless defined in rather special and restricted ways. Successful research, it is said, is essentially an activity dependent upon the stimulation of individuals, exposed perhaps quite by chance, to the impact of experience; the outcome being to a large degree unpredictable. But if it is such a chancy business, in what way does it make sense to d e h e priorities? Of course, one can select individuals in terms of their background training, and known performance, and one can offer a selected range and type of experience situations, either in the field, or the laboratory. But there has always been very strong resistance to the notion that criteria for selection of individuals, or for the offer of different types of experience should be based on anything other than what is described as ‘scientific merit’. What this usually means in practice ia a judgement by professional peers based on concensus views of what kinds of work constitute real contributions, and what areas of experience are likely to be most fruitful. The standards and criteria are therefore internal, in the sense of being generated by a professional group of say, nutritionists, or physicists or chemists, and are usually defended by describing them as purely technical in charackr, and thus free of any bias of a social or political nature. Indeed, other kinds of criteria are often rejected on the grounds that they might impede the progress of research by imposing constraints based, for example, on social Priorities. As an example of this, the report of the Inter-University Council (1977) on British Universities and Polytechnics and Overseas Development, vigorously rejects the notion of ‘relevance’ in research or in the setting of priorities for exchanges between UK and overseas universities. Instead, the Committee asserts that the value of overseas experience springs simply from mutual contact between individuals and groups of the highest level of academic excellence. It is of course inconceivable that any group of people representing a profession, or acting as an advisory committee could produce a statement of research priorities which was not also a reflection of their own social and cultural values. The position that needs to be challenged therefore is that there exists a framework of scientific judgement which is value free, and will therefore yield an undistorted set of priorities. What we should do in the future, particularly about Third World priorities is not quite so clear. If nutritionists in the UK assert priorities, they are in effect saying in the light of their own values and beliefs, what they feel would be most beneficial for other countries.