100 key research questions for the post-2015 development agenda
Development Policy Review
January 2016 Volume 34, Issue 1 Pages i–ii, 5–174
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/dpr.2016.34.issue-1/issuetoc

Johan A. Oldekop, Lorenza B. Fontana, Jean Grugel, Nicole Roughton, Emmanuel A. Adu-Ampong, Gemma K. Bird, Alex Dorgan, Marcia A. Vera Espinoza, Sara Wallin, Daniel Hammett, Esther Agbarakwe, Arun Agrawal, Nurgul Asylbekova, Clarissa Azkoul, Craig Bardsley, Anthony J. Bebbington, Savio Carvalho, Deepta Chopra, Stamatios Christopoulos, Emma Crewe, Marie-Claude Dop, Joern Fischer, Daan Gerretsen, Jonathan Glennie, William Gois, Mtinkheni Gondwe, Lizz A. Harrison, Katja Hujo, Mark Keen, Roberto Laserna, Luca Miggiano, Sarah Mistry, Rosemary J. Morgan, Linda L. Raftree, Duncan Rhind, Thiago Rodrigues, Sonia Roschnik, Flavia Senkubuge, Ian Thornton, Simon Trace, Teresa Ore, René Mauricio Valdés, Bhaskar Vira, Nicola Yeates and William J. Sutherland

Article first published online: 13 DEC 2015 | DOI: 10.1111/dpr.12147
Open Access

Abstract
The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) herald a new phase for international development. This article presents the results of a consultative exercise to collaboratively identify 100 research questions of critical importance for the post-2015 international development agenda. The final shortlist is grouped into nine thematic areas and was selected by 21 representatives of international and non-governmental organisations and consultancies, and 14 academics with diverse disciplinary expertise from an initial pool of 704 questions submitted by 110 organisations based in 34 countries. The shortlist includes questions addressing long-standing problems, new challenges and broader issues related to development policies, practices and institutions. Collectively, these questions are relevant for future development-related research priorities of governmental and non-governmental organisations worldwide and could act as focal points for transdisciplinary research collaborations.

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Discussion
No shortlist can cover all possible development issues where further research is needed (nor could one expect full agreement on an exclusive list). The 100 questions presented here address a varied combination of long-standing problems that have hindered development for decades as well as newer challenges. For example, well-established concerns about the rights of women, and of vulnerable groups such as poor workers, small-scale farmers, people with disabilities, children and ethnic minorities feature alongside emerging issues, including the role of business in protecting human rights, and information and communication technologies as tools for empowerment and social integration. Similarly, traditional concerns linked to rural livelihoods, land tenure and agricultural production are presented together with environmental sustainability, natural resource extraction, urbanisation, food security and climate change adaptation and mitigation. The inclusion of longstanding questions in the shortlist highlights the intractability of certain issues and the necessity for them to remain central in future research agendas.

The shortlist also reflects a progressive shift from economic development towards a multifaceted and more complex way of understanding social change. While civil society and the empowerment of marginalised populations are recognised as key for development, questions on new actors, including the private sector and emerging economic powers, feature heavily in this shortlist: the complex and contested role of middle-income countries as donors and partners, as well as recipients of aid, is one such example (Alonso et al., 2014). Furthermore, the questions shortlisted also reflect the mainstreaming of gender perspectives into a wide range of development areas, helping to cement the view that gender should be considered central to future development initiatives.

Of particular importance is that a substantial number of the submitted questions (102) went beyond the initially prescribed themes and specifically challenged the appropriateness of current development institutions and policies, or the epistemological foundations of development itself. Collectively, these questions highlight a critical need for a deeper reflection on paradigms underpinning international development practices, the long-debated reform of global institutions and the significance of contemporary economic and political scenarios for the development agenda. In one sense, these questions constitute a key outcome of the consultation. Not only do these questions raise important issues in themselves but they also highlight a potential limitation of the many other post-2015 priority-setting exercises using pre-determined themes. Allowing participants to think outside of predetermined thematic boxes might raise issues that scrutinise broader concepts of development and their underlining assumptions…