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As a quite good topic for one of our national conference was “Research” The range of research topics is huge. For this reason, we can only discuss a few aspects of the research scene; it makes no claim to give a complete picture nor indeed to highlight any particular topics. If we want to know “Who’s who”, or where in our region questions are being addressed on issues like climate protection, preservation of resources, ecology, biodiversity, raw material sources, consumer protection or nutrition, then we need more research to do. Globalisation and demographic change impose great demands on rural areas to be competitive. On top of this comes climate change, which necessitates new adaptation strategies. There is a need for fresh ideas, new products and areas for value creation, new ways of achieving complete cycles of materials. New sources of energy and materials must be opened up. Biomass produced by forestry and agriculture offers enormous potential for this. In the future, rural areas will have tremendous development potential in this respect. Research on women and children reveals that there are several areas which require the attention of planners and programme implementers. Policy decisions based on research findings are rooted in ground reality, and therefore have the capacity to bring about tangible improvement in the situation, whether it is with regard to nutritional status, health practices, income generation, domestic violence or rights of women and children. Research on social issues in India is being conducted by a plethora of organisations, namely research institutes, government ministries and departments, autonomous organisations, home science colleges, social work departments of universities, medical colleges, international and national voluntary organisations. As research is a vital input for development, planners, administrators and researchers are on the look out for social factors which have the potential to impact the outcomes of various government programmes. Transport is fundamental to economic growth and the delivery of basic services. Low volume roads are the principal form of transport in the rural parts of most low-income places. People require access to reach basic services and all kinds of economic and social opportunities. However, people live further than 2 km from an all-season road. Isolated communities are often left behind in development. IARDRC supports workable, high quality, applied research that will assist low-income places to design, build and maintain all-weather rural roads to poor communities. In close collaboration with existing and newly formed national research centres and local partners, the programme designs and implements a portfolio of research, capacity building and knowledge management initiatives in rural transport. The research strategy framework is built around three broad, closely inter-related, thematic clusters: infrastructure, transport services and cross-cutting issues.
Low Volume Roads Research
Infrastructure in the research strategy primarily concerns engineering and technical research on rural roads as well as the organisational arrangements for their planning, funding, construction, maintenance and investigation (research, testing). Consideration may be given within this theme cluster to other forms of infrastructure providing community access such as village tracks and river transport facilities where these clearly contribute to the overall programme objective.
The thematic focus for infrastructure research is on:
1. Sustainable and economical provision of infrastructure
2. Optimised use of material resources and environment
3. Effective whole life rural road asset management
4. Defining, measuring and analysing road access
Rural Transport Services Research
Transport services include all aspects of the provision of both public and private transport services (motorised and non-motorised) in rural areas of Low Income Countries for the movement of both passengers (disaggregated by gender and other attributes) and goods.
The thematic focus for transport services research is on:
1. Public transport services operation and regulation
2. Motorcycle taxis and intermediate means of transport
3. Rural mobility and access to roads
Cross-cutting Issues in Rural Access
A number of crosscutting issues have been identified that concern both infrastructure and transport services. These include building more evidence concerning the need for, and the (quantifiable) benefits of, rural roads and transport services. Climate change, gender issues and road safety are also important research areas that need to be addressed in relation to rural roads and transport services. Finally, a 'horizon-scanning' theme will encourage proactive research questions that acknowledge the rapidly changing environment in terms of technologies, climate change, governance and security. This theme will include lesson learning between regions at different stages of development in terms of rural transport.