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Developing countries need a capability in cutting edge scientific research — including mathematics — to handle difficult social, economic and political choices, according to Claude Lobry, director of the International Centre for Pure and Applied Mathematics (CIMPA) in Nice, France.

“The problems of the poor countries — health, malnutrition, pollutants, infrastructure, energy and so on — demand rapid decision-taking,” says Lobry. “Their development requires a massive mobilization of scientific knowledge to enable them to say: ‘the following steps may be considered, their implementation will take so long, these will be the costs incurred, and so on’.”

Researchers must play a key role in setting up committees of experts who are competent and trustworthy, argues Lobry. Only those actively involved in the informal network of international research can suggest individuals who are competent to deal with particular issues. “The most important thing is that they be outstanding in their own field, and therefore have access to the best sources of information.”

Lobry says that any significant social issue in a developing country has economic and political implications which affect industrialized countries, and that these countries cannot therefore be left to set up expert committees alone.

“Imagine a country with vast stretches of desert, willing to hire this land out to developed countries as a dump site for their toxic waste,” he says. “The safety conditions and a fair remuneration for the service must be discussed. Can the country providing the service be expected to put its blind trust in the experts of the country which is buying the service? Obviously not.”

The situation would be completely different if this country had a team of efficient physicists, who could draw up an opinion based on the quality of the expertise provided. The South must therefore urgently acquire a research body capable of tapping into the global corpus of scientific knowledge, and it is the duty of the North to assist them in this.

This is even true of mathematics, says Lobry. “Mathematical skills are lost or blunted unless they are maintained by research. Mathematicians must work at their own subject if they are to intervene effectively in other disciplines.”

Full text: http://helix.nature.com/wcs/c17.html