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On the occasion of its 35th anniversary, IDRC looks back at the ideas, vision, and actions that helped shape the Centre into a world-class organization. The International Development Research Centre: A Brief History traces the Centre's beginnings in 1970 and its evolution in programing and outlines why IDRC is a different kind of public institution.

“This is an idea whose time has come.”

The sentiments expressed by Maurice Strong on the creation of the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) in 1970 echoed those of many distinguished persons in the decades before the birth of this new Canadian entity.

For some years, it had become apparent that the spectacular benefits science and technology were bringing to the rich countries were not reaching the developing world.

In 1935, after taking note of the global imbalance in scientific development, eminent biologist Julian Huxley called for a truly scientific approach to the problem of development.

United States President Harry Truman declared in his 1949 inaugural address that it was time to mobilize science for worldwide development. He was convinced that the technology that had worked for the developed countries would provide the same benefits when transplanted to underdeveloped regions.

In the mid-1960s, the UN Advisory Committee on the Application of Science and Technology to Development observed that “Only a very small fraction of the world’s scientific and technical resources is devoted to the problems of the developing countries; the overwhelming proportion of the world’s intellectual capital, as well as its physical capital, is applied toward … the highly developed countries.”

And in her 1966 benchmark essay, Spaceship Earth, British economist, journalist, and educator Barbara Ward (Lady Jackson) declared that “… mankind is … a single, equal and fraternal community” and that “… new technological resources, properly deployed, will conquer ancient shortage.”

By the late 1960s, a climate of disillusion and distrust surrounded foreign aid programs.World leaders found development efforts at a turning point and called for new directions. Canada responded, setting a new course, in creating the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) in 1968, and in 1970, establishing IDRC — the world’s first organization devoted to supporting research activities as defined by developing countries.

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