IFS Strategy

The IFS Strategy 2021–2030 – Investing in Future Scientists – represents an evolution in IFS’s approach to enhancing research capacity, driven by changes in the contemporary context. While IFS continues to emphasise the quality and development relevance of the research it supports, the 2021–2030 Strategy sets out the case for increased resources for supporting promising early-career scientists as essential to addressing national and global challenges.

Vision

Building on five decades of experience, the Strategy reaffirms the organisation’s Vision of scientists in the Global South assuming ownership and development of local and regional research agendas and contributing to a global research community committed to supporting sustainable development and building science literacy.

Theory of Change

IFS’s Theory of Change is that investing in research and complementary skills of promising early-career scientists from the Global South enhances research capacity, thereby helping secure the cadre of Global South scientists needed to participate in the generation of the science, technology and innovation, and supporting policies, essential to eliminating poverty and hunger.

Mission

To realize its Vision, IFS’s Mission is to enhance the capacity of promising early-career women and men scientists in the Global South to acquire the skills needed to conduct research and communicate their results, contribute to science literacy, influence science priority setting, and network and collaborate with the global research community to shape research agendas.

Objectives

The overall Objective is to enhance the capacity of promising early-career scientists in the Global South to conduct relevant research, increase science literacy, and influence local, regional and global research agendas.

Specific Objectives are:

1. Generation and dissemination of scientific knowledge by early-career scientists in the Global South, and

2. Enhanced capacity of early-career scientists from the Global South to influence, lead, network, fundraise and put research into use.

Capacity-enhancing Support

IFS provides tailored research capacity-enhancing support to promising early-career scientists centred around individual Basic Grants and Advanced Grants. Capacity-enhancing support includes training workshops, usually with partners, in science writing, using social media, using research, data protection, and ethics in research. Support may also be provided to help grantees purchase equipment, visit laboratories, attend conferences and present research results.

Following a review of the future of IFS in 2022 and the debates held at the organisation’s 50th Anniversary Celebratory Forum in November (see next page), IFS’s strategy is evolving to seek new partners and ways of working. IFS will, for example, reach out to researchers working with those most vulnerable to climate change and biodiversity loss, including local communities and indigenous people, to co-develop solutions that improve livelihoods and resilience to existential shocks.