Rethinking Research Institutions & Industry Interaction

Henry Neondo writes in African Science News:

In Kenya like other sub-Saharan countries, Mabeya J. (of VACID) said the relationship between research institutions and industry is weak. “While the research institutions do little to establish working relationships with local companies, the firms think poorly of institutes’ abilities and expect little from them”.
As a result, research institutions do little or no industrial research, and are used by a few companies that, for the most part simply want to access testing facilities.
At the same time the industry is hell bound to seek for new technologies from the developed world or from the emerging economies, giving little preference to technology developed locally.
Mabeya said this has facilitated the current trend of the North-South movement of technology much to the detriment of local innovativeness, industry and economic development.
“Subsequently farmers access less of local technologies compared to those sourced from foreign countries”. He noted that although many Science and technology institutions have been established, often at a great cost, unfortunately, most of these institutions work in isolation, without effective linkages with the productive sector.